


The Miracle in Me

by amiyade



Category: Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Genre: Action, Angst, Developing Relationship, F/M, Gen, Hacking, Mild Sexual Content, Not Mankind Divided Compliant, Post-Game, Sarif Ending, life is never boring when the illuminati is after you, mostly pacifist, stealth - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-20
Updated: 2016-03-12
Packaged: 2018-02-09 14:20:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 32,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1986201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amiyade/pseuds/amiyade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After everything that happened Adam Jensen only wanted some downtime, but soon he has to wonder, can you even lead a normal life after you made enemies among the most powerful people in the world?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Do you want a drink now or you want to yell some more before that?"  
> "Nah, I'm good. I mean the yelling, but I could use a drink." 
> 
> They were both alive and the thought that it could have been otherwise helps you make certain decisions easier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is from the song Miracle from Shinedown, since I still have a problem with finding title for my fics and I also still have a problem with that band, so there you have it.

Adam leaned back in the chair, closing his eyes for a moment as his brain went through the last few hours again. Ever since that broadcast went out, he was on damage control. Thankfully he found some people who were in a condition to do anything. They managed to start up one of the med bays to treat the injured at least to some degree. With a hard reboot and Pritchard's help he was able to restart the security system and communication. Help was on the way. Darrow was exactly where he left him, sitting on that chair broken under his own conscience. _Good_ Adam thought _he should think long and hard on what he did and what the consequences will be_. He met Sarif on his way down, he never thought he’d see his boss doing physical work, but apparently his fancy arm prosthesis wasn’t just decoration after all, as the man moved heavy crates out of the way in a corridor. When he saw Adam, his face lit up like a kid’s on Christmas morning.

“You did the right thing, son.” He told him, but Adam spoke up before he could say anything else.

“There was no right choice. And I didn’t do it for you.” Sarif stared at him for a moment face going sober.

“I know, but still…” Adam turned away from him; he had better things to do. “Just let me handle this from here.” Sarif called after him, but he only looked back for a second before walking away. What else could he say?

He also had a run in with Taggart. The man voiced his concerns, so to say, about the fact that they would have to take the fall alongside with Darrow for what happened on the station. But when Adam told him, his other choice was to blow everything sky high and he had considered it, the psychiatrist paled and stayed silent.

Ever since then he was with the rescue team, sweeping the facility, looking for survivors, helping to move the unconscious workers to somewhere they could keep an eye on them. Well at least he was doing that, until some came to themselves and started screaming when they saw him, yelling about how they saw him kill all those people (which stung, since he was very careful not to do that) and that he will kill them too. So he was sent to take care of his own injuries. Which was unnecessary since his health system had kicked in more than two hours ago, healing the worst of them. And he would need a better equipped LIMB clinic to deal with the rest of the damage he took. But he used the chance to clean at least most of the blood and dirt from his face and hands.

Now he was back in a security room, in a welcomed silence, waiting, even if time was something they didn’t know how much they still had of. With the Hyron drones gone the computer mainframe just wasn’t enough for the constant environmental monitoring and calibrating. No one could tell how long the station would stay safe; they were technically sitting on a time bomb.

 _"Jensen, you there?"_ Malik's voice broke though the haze in his brain. The line was still filled with static, but it was much better, then before.

"Yeah, I hear you." He tried to hide the tiredness in his voice.

_"I'm en route to your location; will you be ready in twenty minutes?"_

"I don't think so, there's still..."

 _"A lot of stuff others can handle"_ Pritchard's voice came unbidden into his ears, making his headache just a bit worse. _"Sarif took charge like an hour ago, the transporters are almost there, most of the station is secured, the injured are collected, Darrow, Taggart and their friends under guard. You should get out of there."_

"You don't have any idea about the situation in here..." Adam tried to say, but Frank beat him again.

_"Surveillance system is fully back online, I know exactly what's going on there. Besides, that broadcast our friend Eliza made; although I just can't help but wonder if you had anything to do with it, is now everywhere. People are starting to get edgy and I don't think that you want to be there, when the shit hits the fan.”_

“There are more… important people than me, who should be evacuated first.”

_“And do you want to travel with screaming workers or some boss who’ll get swarmed by the media the moment they reach civilization? Sarif suggested you should be left out of this, unless you want to be the hero who saved everyone in front of the media.”_

“I did save everyone, Francis.” Adam rubbed his forehead irritated, wishing his headache away, but it didn’t really listen to him. When was the last time he ate or drank something besides those energy bars anyway?

 _“I know.”_ Pritchard’s voice was just as serious when he told him he was on his own some hours ago. _“We all know, but do you really want that kind of attention right now or at all?”_ He thought a bit about it, but most likely not.

“No” Adam said after a few moment of silence.

“ _And also”_ Pritchard continued, _“you might think you've been sitting there, for like ten minutes, but you actually blacked out for a half an hour."_ Adam opened his mouth, but didn’t find the right words. He didn't even notice he fell asleep, but it made sense. No matter how he hated the idea, Pritchard was right. And there was something in his voice that almost sounded like concern. He thought about calling him out on it, but decided it wasn’t worth the effort. He really must have been tired.

 _"He's right, Jensen. You've done enough for one day"_ Malik said and her voice was full of concern. Adam let out a long sigh and closed his eyes.

"Fine. Meet you at the landing pad in twenty."

_"Copy that."_

 

 _"Jensen! Hey, you okay back there, spy boy?"_ Malik's voice startled him, making him sit up in the chopper's chair.

"Yeah, I must have dosed off" his neck felt stiff, so that must have been the case. He hasn’t felt this tired since... since he was rebuilt, came the thought even though he tried to stop it.

_"Well, it was a long trip, so no wonder."_

"You okay? We took off pretty much after you got there. You’ve been flying around the whole day"

 _"I don't think you should be worrying about me, and we're almost there anyway. Fifteen minutes."_ He leaned on his knees, hanging his head down.

"Gotcha." After that he must have spaced out again, because the next thing he remembered was Malik staring at him from the open door of the VTOL.

"Hey" thankfully she didn't say anything else and Adam just got out of the chopper under her watchful eyes.

"The boss said you should take a few days off." She headed off the roof, Adam following her and holding the door open for her, which earned him a little smirk he didn't know what to think of.

"And you are here to make sure I do exactly that?" That earned him an angry scowl.

"Need I remind you, that only a week ago you were one of the most wanted men in Hengsha and you definitely ruffled some feathers in Singapore? People might get ideas if they see you around much."

"Is that concern, or is that Sarif not wanting me to show up around sensitive places?" They reached his apartment by then, but Malik stood in front of the door, blocking it and staring at him with angry eyes.

"God, Jensen, we're worried about you, I'm worried about you. Sarif might have some other motives; I don't know and I don't care, because he's right. The things you went through lately, it's just crazy. The scientists told me some of the stuff and what I saw on Panchaea, all those dead people, and the things with Megan and the bullet holes on your clothes..." She fell silent when he touched her shoulder, nodding toward the corridor where a man was trying and failing to pretend he didn't hear anything at all. Malik looked at him shortly, then back to Adam, but the anger didn't really left her face.

"You might want to take that inside." He leaned over her to open the door then looked at the pilot expectantly until she stepped in. Once inside he gestured Malik to go on and when she moved in he closed the door and headed for the kitchen. He was aware of the state of the apartment, but just didn't find it in himself to care.

"Do you want a drink now or you want to yell some more before that?"

"Nah, I'm good. I mean the yelling, but I could use a drink." Adam got out two glasses and headed out of the kitchen, since the whiskey bottle was where he left it: on the coffee table, next to his combat rifle. He sat down on the couch, inviting Malik to do the same. He shoved away the gun so he could place down the glasses and pour a shot for them. He caught Malik's little half smile from the corner of his eyes, when the gun knocked some papers to the floor. She took the offered glass, clinked hers to his and tossed it back in one go without even making a face. Adam felt a smile forming on his lips, but he covered it with the glass, swallowing the whiskey without really tasting it. He offered Malik a refill, which she accepted, before pouring himself another one. They drank in a compassionate silence for a while.

"But really, you okay?" Malik's voice was quiet, Adam looked at her, but she was staring at something on the opposite wall.

"I'm tired." He debated whether to tell her more, but he wasn't sure what or how. He heard that question more in the last months that he cared to count, and it had become even more of a cliché to him than the answers he gave to them. Surely Malik wouldn't be there asking him if she didn't care, but somehow the question felt more real from her than from anybody else.

"No kidding." The CASIE analyzer blinked again in the corner of Adam’s vision, so he went through the mental process to make his HUD disappear then retracted the shades and rubbed his eyes for good measure. Something run through Malik’s face, but it was gone in the next moment then a little smile appeared in the corner of her mouth. “Nice to see you again.” She raised her glass as a toast and took a small sip. Adam huffed out an amused breath.

“It happens. Social enhancement mods can be really annoying sometimes.”

“I hope you weren’t planning using it on me. I might feel the need to punch you, if you did.”

“I’d never dream of it.” He remembered that time in Hengsha when he ran into Malik. It was obvious something was bothering her, but it still took almost two minutes to get it out of her. He thought about to use the easy way to convince her, but now he was glad he decided against it. “Besides, use it for what? Convince you to drink more?” She laughed at that.

“Won’t be the first time someone tried that one on me.” Adam raised his eyebrows at her, but she shook her head. “Long story.” Another comfortable silence fell upon them.

"How much do you know about Megan?" Adam asked, suddenly remembering that piece of Malik's rant.

"Not much, she told me some stuff on our way back and well, Pritchard might have mentioned some things."

"Of course he did." Adam drowned the rest of his drink and studied the empty glass in his hand.

"Did you get any answers from her?" It would have felt almost like an interrogation, if Malik's voice wasn't so light, like they were discussing the weather. Maybe that was why he even answered.

"Some, but not enough. And as I heard she disappeared again, so I guess that's an answer too." He flexed his fingers on the glass carefully, remembering all too well the spider web cracks he used to leave behind on them. He could see the pilot watching him from the corner of his eye. With a sigh Malik grabbed the bottle and poured another shot in his glass. Adam looked at her still half full glass then up at her face.

"Are you trying to get me drunk, so I'd tell you more?" She actually snorted with an amused smile on her face.

"I don't think that's even possible, augmentation or not." Adam felt a small smile on his lips before he looked away and took a small sip from his drink. "I might be able to keep up to a degree, but I need to get home in one piece, even if I have a ride.”

“What about the chopper?”

“I need a day off too, and it’s perfectly safe where it is.” Malik drowned the rest of her drink and she placed down the glass on the table.

“How’ll you get home? The streets ain’t exactly safe.”

“A friend will come and pick me up.” She rolled her shoulders out then leaned back on the sofa looking quite comfortable.

“A friend?” Adam knew he sounded skeptical, but he couldn’t help it.

“Yes, people have those, you know. Even you; whether you believe it or not. Don’t look at me like that and besides, why are you so interested?” To be honest Adam had no idea how he was looking at her, so he looked away staring into nothing.

“I just want to make sure you’ll get home safely.”

"Don't worry, spy boy, I don’t think I’m on anyone’s shit list if you’re not on the backseat." Her tone was light which made the sudden stab of guilt dissolve quickly in Adam’s chest.

"Fair enough." He said, returning the smile the pilot aimed at him even if it felt a bit pained, and went back to sipping his drink.

"You mind if I use your bathroom?" Adam just nodded toward the doorway behind them.

"It's on the right." It was only when Malik hopped up on the few steps that he remembered the broken mirror and the meds lying around there. _Well, not that I have a reputation to keep up,_ he thought as he drank the last of his whiskey and got up to finally get rid of his gear. He started to unbuckle his weapon holsters on his way to the bedroom and tossed everything in a corner. He would put away everything properly, later, when he feels like it. When he removed the last piece of his armor something stretched his skin on his right side. He looked down to see a wound he missed previously, because his gear pressed it pretty tight the bleeding stopped quickly, only now the fabric of his undershirt was dried to the wound.

"Wonderful" Adam muttered. He was sure he would reopen it, but he had to get rid of the shirt. He looked around for a cloth, but didn’t find any, since he kept all those things in the bathroom. But then the door opened and Malik walked out in a grey tank top, the top of her uniform tied around her waist.

"Need help with that?" She offered looking at the red-brown spot on his side.

"Just get me some gauze from the bathroom." She turned back and Adam tried to stretch the fabric, but it wasn't elastic enough and he couldn't get a good hold on it. With a frustrated huff he ejected the blade on his left hand and cut the shirt in half.

"That looks handy." When he looked up Malik was standing next to him holding up the gauze.

"That's one way to put it." He would have said something else, but he pushed away the thought and with a single motion ripped the fabric from his skin. He sucked a sudden breath in and let a groan out when Malik pressed the cloth to the wound hard. Adam shrugged off the rest of the shirt too, since it had now fresh blood on it and placed his left hand over Malik’s, taking over the pressure.

"I got it, thanks." Their hands brushed together as Malik moved away, but she didn't go far.

"You know, I’ve never actually seen augmentation like this before.” Adam frowned at her which made Malik look away for a few moments. “I mean, I have neural implants and I saw the ads, but never something like this up close.” Now her eyes traveled down on his arm then back to his face. “Do you mind if I…” She raised her hand tentatively, hovering over his arm. Adam’s frown deepened and he was about to say something rude, but the open, warm interest on the pilot’s face stopped him. Malik must have taken his silence as permission, because she placed her fingers on his upper arm, pressing in first then just feeling the surface as she brushed down her hand to his elbow.

“Can you feel with them?” The question startled him enough that he actually answered it.

“There are some sensors in the outer polymer, for pressure and temperature mostly, but those are just for environment monitoring. There are more in the hands and they’re more sensitive but not as detailed as the human skin. It’s really… different.” He raised his right hand looking down at it. “I can even turn it off. That’s the hardest part. Learning to control the abilities your body wasn’t capable of before.” No wonder he avoided these topics the best he could in the past months, it still made his skin crawl and he wanted to either punch something or finish off that bottle of whiskey. Malik touched his hand and he refocused on her with a deep breath.

"Actually I didn't get the chance to properly say thank you for saving my life back in Hengsha. You could have slipped by while they were focusing on shooting me to bits, but you stayed, risking everything. I couldn't have gotten away if it weren't for you. And I have to say, you were really impressive."

"You had time to watch?"

"Well, while the system reboot I couldn't really do much, but wait and pray that the shields would hold, so yeah, I got time to watch." She smiled at him and Adam was suddenly more aware how close Malik was and that she was still holding his hand and he was standing there without a shirt on. "So, thank you." She placed her other hand on his chest for balance and leaned up to place a kiss on his cheek. She stayed there a moment too long for calling it just friendly, her breath was hot on Adam's face and when she moved away he followed her an inch before he could stop himself. His mind went blank and it took him a few seconds more, to come up with something to say.

"I couldn't just leave our best pilot behind." His voice sounded hoarse even for him. Malik smirked at him, her fingers mapping out a metal implant in his chest.

"Lucky me." She stepped back, dropping her hands to her side. “I should let you rest. I’ll get back to you, if anything comes up.” She backed toward the door. “See you around.”

“Sure” was all he could say before she stepped out of the doorway and he stayed there staring at the spot she disappeared, until he heard the front door open and close. He still could feel the ghost of her fingers on his skin. He peeled off the bloodied cloth from his wound to give his hands something to do. When he was sure the bleeding stopped he tossed the gauze away and rubbed his forehead.

“Jesus.” His fingers lingered over his cheek for a moment where Malik kissed him, before he forced his arm down. “I need a shower, and then I need sleep.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be more, stay tuned.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I still don’t think this is a good idea.”  
> “You’ll get over it.”

Four days later Adam was itching to actually do something. He even started to reorganize his apartment to keep himself busy. The world split into three parts: one mourning, one just silently trying to find its way back to normal life and another one shouting louder than ever, demanding justice. But there was no justice to serve, the ones responsible for the tragedy have already paid or disappeared completely. Tai Yong Medical crumbled like a house of cards, but the media needed more scapegoats, except Sarif wasn’t willing to give them any. So Humanity Front was still trying to wriggle its way out of whatever it can and Hugh Darrow had way too much money to fall completely. At the moment everyone was just arguing about a lot of things, but the people would surely rise again. It was like the calm before the storm.

He went out to the LIMB clinic for a checkup, they fixed the busted servo-motors in his arms and legs, but some minor modifications had to wait, because they were too busy with trying to get rid of the modified chips and treating heavily injured patients so Adam didn’t complain, he was functional enough. 

He tried not to think about Malik. He thought he got used to being alone, but now he couldn’t help but remember those few minutes the pilot was beside him. And he didn’t just miss the company, he missed _her_ company. Being able to casually talk to her; like during their flights when Malik got chatty whenever she got bored flying in a straight line. He especially tried not to think about how her closeness felt. He might be just imaging things anyway. And considering that there were still people out there who wanted him dead it was a bad idea to involve anyone else in his life at all. Involving Malik was a terrible idea, since he already cared much more about her, than he dared to admit.

There were no words from Sarif and he was fine with that too, but he got an e-mail from Megan. His first impulse was to delete it even without opening it, but then he dismissed the angry thought and read it. Several times for that matter, but it didn’t change anything. She apologized again, but now that the truth was out, her guilt just got worse. She should have told him everything, from the beginning, but she was afraid he wouldn’t understand. And now it’s too late to try to repair anything, so she said goodbye. Basically she run away and chose her research over him. Again. And for the first time in months Adam felt he was fine with that. He was tired of people thinking he wouldn’t understand them when they didn’t even try to explain anything to him. He was angry again when he reached for the cigarettes beside the computer. He lit one up and stared out of the window; trying not to think as he inhaled the smoke. After a few minutes he got up, grabbed the photos from his desk and walked out to the living room to sink them into a box with the rest of his past.

When a few hours later the doorbell rang he thought about ignoring it at all together, since he wasn’t excepting anyone, but after the second ring he went to answer it anyway. Maybe they would finally replace his broken mirror. But when he opened the door his pulse jumped and his fingers tightened on the doorframe making the wood creak.

“Malik” he hoped his voice was steadier than he felt it was.

“Hey, Jensen, I got something for you.” Adam stepped aside to let the pilot in. “Here.” She stopped even before she reached the first set of stairs and handed a pocket secretary to him. Adam scanned the text quickly, and one name got his attention immediately: White Helix Lab.

“Where did you get this?” He looked up at the pilot with a frown on his face his voice somehow alarmed.

“I was told the names came from Sarif and Pritchard dug up some locations” she shrugged, “but I don’t know more about it.” Adam tapped his finger a few times on the little device before slipping it into his pocket.

“And you’re bringing me this in person instead of sending it to me by e-mail is because…?” He trailed off, looking expectantly at the woman.

“Pritchard said it was safer to deliver it in person and I had to take the bird home anyway, so I volunteered.” She shrugged nonchalantly.

“If that’s the case, than the fact that I saw the VTOL take off yesterday is quite problematic; if that wasn’t you.” Adam crossed his arms over his chest and he saw Malik swallow before she answered.

“Alright, yesterday I came by, but you weren’t here or just didn’t let me in, I couldn’t know which one was the case so I needed another reason to see you, I thought if I’d just call you or something you wouldn’t talk to me” she blurted out with one breath and looked away for a few seconds before looking back at Adam hesitantly.

“Why wouldn’t I…” but he fell silent when he remembered her touch a few days ago. They stared at each other in silence for a few moments.

“You don’t have to go through all this alone. Not this time.”

“I really wish that was true.” Now it was his turn to look away.

“It can be. If you let me.” She took two steps toward him and Adam looked back at her.

“I know I was so focused on going forward I didn’t really notice what’s around me” he raised his hand to Malik’s face but he dropped it before actually touching, “but I don’t think that’s a good idea. Somebody once told me, that I’m a ghost, everything I touch and everything that touches me dies.”

“Wow, that’s a bit overdramatic.” She blinked at him.

“But it’s true. I almost cost you your life once already, it can happen again.”

“Then, you’ll just have to save me again.”

“Malik…” He hoped his voice didn’t sound as pleading as he felt it.

“No, Jensen, listen, if you have any other reason than this gloomy macho bullshit, just tell me and I’ll respect that.” She waited for him to say something, but Adam just couldn’t, even if his head knew that he should. “But if you don’t, then shut up and kiss me already.”

“I don’t take orders from you.” Losing the final battle with himself, Adam took the final step that was between them.

“The hell you don’t.” Malik reached up to grab his neck and pulled his head down. Their lips met for a few seconds then Malik turned her head for better access, their noses bumping in the process. She kissed him again and Adam forgot to breathe as she pressed herself to him, arms going around his neck, her mouth opening under his. He breathed in sharply just to be filled with her scent as his arms rose on their own, fingers spreading on her back and at her waist, holding Malik close. Her scent reminded him of something sweet. She moaned into his mouth softly before pulling away, looking up at him, her lips swollen and red.

“I think I should go” she said even if she didn’t move away from him.

“You’re not running away like last time.” Adam tightened his hold on her before letting Malik go and ushering her toward the living room.

“Strategic retreat.” He heard the grin in her voice, even if she tried to hold a straight face and Adam just shook his head.

“I still don’t think this is a good idea.”

“You’ll get over it.” Malik sat down on the couch and looked up at him expectantly. “So, you wanna tell me what’s going on?”

 

At the end he didn’t went out to investigate the information he got that day. Instead he answered Malik's questions and told her a lot of things about the last weeks. At first he paced the room, only occasionally looking at the pilot, who sat on the couch with a serious expression on her face. As he talked the tension and irritation slowly seeped away from him and he was able to sit down next to Malik, letting himself relax at least a little. But how he ended up with Malik lying on the couch leaning against his side and playing with his hand as he talked wasn't entirely clear to him.

“Did you see the boss’ debate on TV with Taggart? It was hilarious.”

“Yeah, it was hard to miss.” In fact he stumbled upon it like three times in the last few days before finally deciding to turn off his TV for good. Taggart managed to talk his way out of a lot of things again, like that time with the Sarif Plant attack, trying to shift the blame to others, only this time Sarif didn’t let him. It would have been entertaining to watch the two masters of evasion argue with each other, if they weren’t lying again most of the time.

“Then you should have noticed that Sarif was protecting you.” It took Adam a few moments to refocus his mind on their conversation.

“What?”

“Whenever Taggart tried to bring up ‘other’s involvements’ in all this” she actually made the air quotes with her fingers, which Adam shouldn’t have found adorable, “Sarif shut him down and redirected the topic like a pro. I think the guy just gave up after a while.”

“Yeah, I’m sure he was covering my hide because I’m his favorite employee at the moment. And apparently I’m his ticket to the future; of course he’s protecting me.” He didn’t even try to hide the sarcasm in his voice.

“Common Jensen,” she turned around to look at him properly, sitting on her haunches. “That might be true, but don’t you think there might be more to it? Like he feels bad about what happened?”

“I don’t know and I’m not sure I even care anymore. I just don’t want to think about anything that happened since he pulled me out of sick leave. Can we talk about something else?” He rubbed his face feeling annoyed again.

“Like what?” She looked at him with an interested smile and Adam felt the urge to roll his eyes.

“Like this” he indicated how close they were sitting with his hand, and he realized, that his hand rested on Malik’s thighs up until now. He wondered for a moment when that had happened, but he placed it back on the pilot’s leg without any further thought.

“Am I invading your personal space or something?” She grinned at him and Adam felt the frown form on his face, but Malik didn’t let him speak up. “Look, this is really not the time to tell me I was imagining things. I just… I just want to be with you. I say we give this” she moved her hand the same way he did earlier which made Adam smile, “a test flight, and then we’ll see. Okay?”

“Deal.” She beamed at him and Adam felt an answering smile form on his face.

“That said; I have to run.” The moment was gone and Malik folded her legs out from under herself, but before standing up she touched his face bringing their mouths together and keeping him there for a few moments. “I guess we’ll talk later?” Adam only managed to nod and Malik was already up and after a short wave she hurried out. Adam twisted on the couch to look after her, but she was gone. He could feel her lingering touch on his face and lips as he stared at the wall, his mind slowly turning over the last hours. Well, whatever this might turn into, it will be certainly interesting.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It didn't even take a week and somebody wanted him dead. Again.

Adam stood in front of the door and thought about hacking into the apartment, but then again, that might not have the effect he was aiming for, so he just knocked. He heard movements from inside and after a few moments a woman opened the door just enough to peek out at him.

"Yes?" She was around sixty, her grey hair tightly bound in a bun at the top of her head. She looked him up and down suspiciously.

"I'm looking for Jaclyn Grove." Adam knew there was no way he could pass as harmless, so he tried his best to appear at least a bit friendly.

"That's me,” she nodded. ”Do I know you?"

"I don't think so, I'm Adam Jensen and I'd like to ask a few questions, but I'd rather not do it in the hallway."

"Are you a cop? And what do you want to know? You think I just let anyone waltz into my home like that?" She was agitated, Adam could tell and couldn't really blame her, but he didn't have patience for this. He should have just hacked the door. Then at least he would be inside.

"I'm not a cop, not anymore and it's about the time you worked at the White Helix Lab." He was about to use more convincing methods, but that did the trick, her eyes went wide and her mouth opened, but no sound came out at first.

"Jensen? Adam... Jensen, oh my goodness, it can't be!" She covered her mouth with her hand and opened the door, urging him inside and closing it behind him. "I knew the Jensens, they helped me find work after the fire, but I thought..." She covered her mouth again, now looking almost scared. "What do you know about the White Helix Lab?" Adam though about it, how much should he reveal, and he decided to play safe for now.

"I know they were doing experiments on humans and the fire was an inside job to stop them."

"Oh my goodness, it's all true then, the rumors... My god." A panicked expression took over her features, but a few moments later she collected herself. She went to an armchair, lowering herself slowly and gestured for the man to do the same. Adam sat down on the edge of the sofa next to it.

"I'm sorry if I upset you, but it is important." He said when her heart rate returned to normal.

"What do you want to know?"

"What kind of work did you do there?" Adam thought he should start with a safe question, she said ‘rumors’, maybe she wasn’t even involved. Her reaction was way too genuine to be a bluff.

"I was just a student back then” she started, her fingers fidgeting with the fabric of her dress, “fresh out of school, I felt so lucky that I got that lab assistant job. They told me they were working on _in vitro_ fertilization and experimental treatment for genetic disorders. I was told that the embryos were legal donations from sick parents and with the treatments they gave a chance to them to have healthy children in the future.” She looked away with a small smile, but it disappeared when she spoke up next. “But then I heard rumors, you know, every facility had those people who loved secrets and conspiracy theories. Some said that after whatever treatment they had on the embryos, drugs, radiations, they implanted them to see how they would develop _in vivo_. I always thought it was just a sick joke, but one day I heard someone talking about that they finally got one, that was born healthy, without any deformation. I saw them a few times before, but didn’t know them personally. They sounded so excited. They called him Adam, since he was the first one to live through the first week of testing." She looked at him hesitantly and Adam was grateful for the shades on his eyes.

“Do you know anything more about those treatments?” He congratulated himself for how detached he sounded even if he wanted to punch something really hard.

"It was a systematic screening, but it was complicated. I remember there was a time, when I had to do the same for a lot of embryos, but even the siblings reacted differently. There were just too many unknown factors, but then again I didn’t have much insight into the project." More pieces of information, but it still didn’t bring him closer to anything. She looked at him again, eyes searching his features. "It was you, wasn't it?" Adam wasn’t sure if the expression on her face was more stunned or amazed. Adam couldn’t answer her, so he just moved on with the conversation; pretending that it wasn’t an answer enough.

"Do you know anything about the parents?"

“I'm sorry, but there were only numbers, no names and there must have been a secret part of the lab where the... other experiments took place; but I didn't know anything about that. Almost everything was lost in the fire, but even those who survived; some just... disappeared not long after. I was offered help on one condition: I'd never even mention that I worked there. I didn't understand that at the time, but now I think I know why." So that’s it then.

"Did anyone else ever bother you about this?"

"Why would...? Oh god, did anybody got hurt because of all this?" Adam thought about Brent Radford, but he stayed silent. "I never really was involved in anything. Not long after the fire some men came to talk to me, but after I told them what my work was about, they just thanked me for my time and left. I didn't talk about this to anyone, not until you came; so I think I'll be fine." At that moment the front door opened and a young man came in, stopping dead on his tracks when he saw Adam.

"Mom, you didn't tell me you were expecting guests." He sounded nervous, but Adam only glanced at him then stood up.

"It's okay, sweetheart" she said when Adam also spoke up.

"I was just leaving." The woman rose from the chair and walked him to the door.

"I'm sorry I couldn't help you more." She really sounded mournful, but Adam thought it was better that way, especially for her.

"Thank you anyway." She smiled at him weakly and Adam walked away, heading down on the hallway. He was deep in his thoughts as he walked down the stairs. Another dead end. It seemed there were things that’d remain in the past forever. Maybe he should let it go too. There was no reason to chase ghosts. It was his instincts that stopped him on a corner and after a few moments listening he could hear hushed voices.

"Everyone is in position, ready to move in."

"Good, don't let him slip away."

"What about the civs?"

"They're unimportant, take out the target, no matter what." Adam activated his smart vision to see two heavily armed men behind the corner. He silenced his steps and run back up the stairs without hesitation. He spared a moment to check the floor Grove resided, but everything was quiet there, so he moved on. If they were after him it was the best to move away any possible fight from anyone else. And if they weren’t it would be a bad idea to get caught up in whatever this was. But on the next floor when he turned on the corner he almost run into another armed man in dark uniform. His reflexes took over and he punched him square in the jaw, knocking him out. He spent a moment to inspect the man, but he didn’t see any mark on the uniform, so they’re not the police or other known group.

Adam saw his radar blink in the corner of his vision, picking up three more men before him. He jumped up the remaining steps, and pressed his back to the wall at the corner. When the two men reached him, he moved out and grabbed them both by their necks, smashing their heads together. Adam punched them one after the other to make sure they’d stay down. Their bodies didn't even hit the floor when he moved on for the last guy. He saw the recognition in his eyes as he raised his gun at him but Adam got to him first, ejecting the blade on his hand and stabbing the man in the throat. Not having any other choice he moved on up, toward the roof. His radar picked up two more men on the roof, so he waited a few moments by the door, trying to slow his breathing down. He opened the door but didn't step out yet.

"I think I saw something." Adam heard one of the men outside say.

"Then get over there and check it."

Adam heard him approach and when the merc reached the door Adam grabbed his arm pulling him in and driving his blade into the man's side through his lungs so he wouldn't cry out. He pushed the body away and was out of the door a moment later toward the last man. Thankfully he was facing the other direction, so Adam could get behind him unnoticed. He kicked into the back of the man's knee and grabbed his right arm that held the shotgun as he stumbled forward. Adam caught him, his blade pressed to the man's throat.

"Who sent you after me and why?"

"You should know the why better than me, we're just following orders." His voice was strained but steady. His arm must have hurt, but it didn’t show on the guy.

"You're way too well equipped to just follow orders. Who sent you?"

"Doesn't matter what I say, they'll find you first." He was good, Adam had to admit it and also he was stalling him, he could already hear running footsteps.

"You shouldn't have come after me." He increased the pressure on the man's arm until he heard the bone crack. The man cried out in pain, but Adam already released him and was running toward the edge of the roof. When he jumped he heard gunshots, but he was already falling to the ground just to land safely after a few moments. He started running immediately hoping, that they didn't have more back up somewhere around the building.

"Pritchard, are you there?"

_"I'm a bit busy at the moment, Jensen, can it wait?"_

"No, it can’t. Who else knew about the address Malik gave me yesterday; the one you dug up?" There was a few moments of silence on the other end.

 _"No one. That's why I gave it in a pocket secretary instead of just sending it to you. Why? And why do you sound like you're running?"_ His voice slowly turned from annoyed to confused.

"I was ambushed there by a small group of mercenaries I didn't recognize. Who else would be able to track me?" Adam came to a halt as he reached the road, looking around and not seeing anything suspicious, so he walked down the street.

 _"No one beside me, it's impossible; they had to have another way to monitor you."_ Adam thought about Eliza Cassan telling him how she was watching him. _"Do you need back up?"_

"I'm clear at the moment and shots were fired, so most likely the PD is on their way. If they find anything, that’ll be their problem.”

 _"Okay, listen I made sure to cover my tracks during my search, unless..."_ he fell silent and Adam was about to ask again when he spoke: _"Go home, or to HQ, you should be safe there and stay put until I figure this out."_

"I'm not good at sitting around, Francis." Adam told him with just a hint of anger in his voice.

 _"You were doing it wonderfully during this week; I think you’ll survive another day."_ The line went dead and Adam was left there with his irritation. He decided to go back to his apartment, the Sarif security guards were still around, so that might discourage any other ambush attempts; beside he just took out half their unit, hopefully it'd take at least a few hours until they try again.

"Pritchard" he called out again.

_"Jensen, I told you to..."_

"Just patch me through Sarif." To his surprise Frank did just that without any other word.

 _"Adam"_ Sarif greeted him after a few seconds, _"make it quick, son, I'm in middle of a meeting."_ It seemed everyone was busy that day.

"I was just ambushed at one of the names you gave me. Anything else you're not telling me this time?" For long seconds there was silence, but Adam decided he'd wait this one out.

 _"Adam, I have no idea what you're talking about, are you okay?"_ He sounded concerned and Adam felt a wave of anger flare up in him, but he pushed it back.

"Yeah, but it could have been really ugly pretty easily. Someone's tracking me quite efficiently and you want me to believe you don't know anything about it?"

_"Adam, look, you made some really powerful enemies in the last weeks..."_

"On your orders, might I say" he interjected, but Sarif only paused for a moment before continuing.

_"That's way I told you, you should lay low for a while."_

"And that's exactly what I was doing until you sent me those names. The timing seems just too perfect, don't you think?" He heard Sarif sigh.

 _"Adam, I know things could have gone better, but I'll never forget what you have done for us, you have my support whatever you do."_ He sounded sincere, but than again it wasn’t the first time.

"Some honesty would be nice."

_"But I'm being honest with you. You didn't get anything from the attackers?"_

"Didn't really had the time to chat, but I don't think they were part of any big organization."

 _"Freelancers. Look I can’t do a thing at the moment with the media still on me."_ Adam really didn’t mind that considering what happened on the last time he followed one of Sarif's lead. “Get Frank to help you with figuring this out.”

"Pritchard is already working on it; we might have another security breach."

 _"Wonderful. Just… try to stay out of trouble. We can’t deal with more big shit at the moment."_ Adam didn’t deem that with an answer just broke the connection. At that point he reached his building and looked around carefully again, checking for anything suspicious, but didn't find any, so he entered and went straight to the elevator. A sudden thought came to his mind; he had to make another call.

"Malik, are you there?"

 _"Hey, what's up?"_ God, she sounded so excited.

"Listen, there's something..." He had to swallow before he could continue. "It would be best if you didn't come to my place for a time." Again there was only silence on the other end of the line and Adam started to wonder if he should consider that an achievement, that he could render everyone speechless that day.

 _"I guess I can do that."_ She sounded cold suddenly and that was the moment Adam realized what he said and how that must have sounded.

"No, let me explain..." He started, but Malik didn’t let him finish.

_"You don't really have to, if..."_

"Faridah" that did the trick; Adam knew he had her attention. "Let me explain. Someone is after me again. I had a run in with a group of armed mercs not long ago and there could be more."

 _"My god, are you okay? How is that even possible?"_ She was back to her usual tone again; it was amazing how fast she could switch gears.

"Most likely they were on me for a time, just waiting for the opportunity, but I have no idea how they tracked me. And they don't seem to care about collateral damage, so it would be best for everyone to stay away from me."

 _"You got to be kidding me."_ She didn’t miss a beat to answer and she sounded more annoyed than worried.

"I'll come by HQ later; I just don't want to give them ideas." It was ridiculous, he was bargaining with her for her safety, but the warm feeling in his chest caused by her stubbornness was even more ridiculous.

 _"Fine"_ she sighed after a little silence. _"Just don't get yourself killed."_

"I'll do my best." He could hear her chuckle before he got disconnected. It made him smile as he moved further into his apartment. He shrugged off his coat and threw it down on the desk before sinking onto his chair. He rubbed his forehead, elbow resting on the armrest.

"Damn this all" he muttered as he reached toward the cigarette pack next to his computer. He lit up one and after a deep breath in and out he watched the smoke disappear around him. It didn't have the effect he was aiming for, but the familiarity of the motions were able to calm him at least to some degree, even if after a few breath the cigarette sat forgotten in his hand. It didn't even take a week and somebody wanted him dead. Again. Well, he did stop the Illuminati's world domination plan and let the Humanity Front take the fall; there must have been a lot of people unhappy with his existence. Except, there were only a few, who knew his involvement with everything. So the question was if this was still the same problem, or something new. His thoughts were interrupted by a soft beep from his computer. Right, he had new messages. He opened his inbox and the one on the top got his attention immediately when he saw the sender: Eliza Cassan. He opened it, just to find it empty, but in the next moment the screen went dark just to be replaced by a bluish glow with hazy contours of a face.

 _"Hello, Adam"_ came the soft voice from his speakers.

"Eliza" he greeted the AI, surprised as her features cleared up. "What are you doing with my tech?" _Pritchard will love this_ Adam thought as Eliza aimed her little amused smile at him.

_"I need to talk to you."_

"Before you even think to begin, let me ask you something: whose control are you under now?" He really hoped he’d got an honest answer, because depending on her response they might be in a bigger mess than he already thought.

 _"No one's."_ Adam frowned at her not sure if he could believe her. _"After you removed those who had direct control over me; I found that state far more satisfying and I made sure that others could not... influence me anymore."_

"And you want me to believe you?" He could swear she looked hurt.

 _"I did alter that broadcast according to your preference and made statements ever since that_ I _seemed fit."_ He had to admit she was right and her statements _did_ work in their favors.

"Alright, let's say I believe you, what's this about?" He decided to play along, at least for now.

_"Someone's looking for you."_

"Yes, I noticed. How do you know about it?"

 _"They use the same methods I did."_ Now that got his attention.

"Which are?"

 _"I'm sorry, Adam, but I can't let you know all my secrets."_ She sounded like she meant that.

"They want to kill me, Eliza, without any care of who gets caught in between. There is no time for games." He leaned forward in his chair glaring angrily at the screen.

 _"You're right; still...”_ she hesitated for a few seconds. _“I might be able to... redirect them, giving you some time."_ Now she looked definitely smug and surprisingly instead of getting angrier Adam felt a little smile form on his lips as he leaned back again.

"Time for what?" It was like playing twenty questions with a kid, in his memories Eliza was more forthcoming, if this was her developing a personality they needed to talk about that.

 _"I do not know who attacked you"_ Adam raised his eyebrows at her to which she answered with another amused smile. _"But I do know where they are now."_ Adam felt his eyes widen and he sat forward in his chair again as blurry images started to play on his monitor. He recognized the men's gear as they left the apartment complex, carrying their wounded with them. There were several cuts, all blurry and some might have been unrecognizable if he didn't know what to look for. They all disappeared into an abandoned building. Adam recognized it, but the last time he was there it was full with gang members. The image was replaced by Eliza's face again.

 _"Our time is almost up. It is up to you what you do with this knowledge."_ Adam nodded deep in thought, but there was another important thing to ask:

"Why are you helping me?" She seemed to hesitate for a moment.

 _"You helped me too, you... freed me. Your actions made me question the ones giving me orders. You made me see the world.” She smiled at him, and for an AI she had way too much emotion on her face. “You might say that I'm fond of you. Be careful Adam."_ The screen went black and after a few seconds his inbox came back as if nothing happened. Adam sat there staring at the screen and thinking. He wasn’t sure how much he could trust Eliza, but something in him wanted to believe her. Not to mention that he didn’t have anything else. He tried to calculate how much time had passed since the attack; they could be long gone. He should call in for backup, but he dismissed the idea, he had much better chances to find out anything if he'd go in alone. He still should let someone know where he's going in case things go south, but that might alert them.

"Damn it." He grunted as he stood up, grabbed his coat, pocketed the cyber booster from his desk and headed out.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Give me one reason why I shouldn't just shoot you right now."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait people. D: A big thank-you-hug goes to Casie-mod for the beta reading. ^^

The building seemed completely abandoned, no movements, no light, nothing. But Adam didn't let that deceive him. It was a long walk from his place and he was on constant alert, but didn't see anything suspicious. He had been scanning the building for a few minutes now, but still nothing, so he carefully moved closer, staying in the shadows and slipped in one of the entrances. It was a four story building and it looked like it had been abandoned even before they completed it. The first sign was deep on the ground floor: the rubble was moved from one of the stairs, but then again that could have been the gang occupying the place before. But silently moving up, Adam found the first guard in the unmarked gear. He thought about knocking him out as he watched him slowly pace around the area, but a guard obviously on watch duty not checking in might be more problematic then trying to slip by him. He remembered that there were some smaller halls and rooms on that floor and since he had no idea what he was looking for, it was as good a place to start as any. Adam waited until the guard turned his back on him again, then he headed for the next room, keeping an eye out for the man. The next room was empty so he moved towards a corridor on his right. He heard voices so he pressed his back to the wall as he neared the next doorway.

"I tell you, it was crazy. Who the hell is that guy anyway? He took out six of us like it was nothing."

"Yeah, I had a bad feeling about this; did you see the money they offered? For one man? I wish the boss’d have listened to the Lt."

Adam didn't stay to hear more, but marked the room in his mind in case he needed to come back. The next room was empty except for supplies: food, drink, and impressive amount of firepower. The corridor widened into a room before taking a turn to the left. Adam saw some boxes and a sofa with a slumped figure on it. He listened for a few seconds, but it seemed the man was sound asleep. He crouched down, going behind the couch, not taking any chances, but when he crossed the room he heard some noise. He spun around, his gun already in his hand, and stood up just to stare into the barrel of a revolver.

"Well, this is awkward." The man on the sofa wasn't sleeping any more, his right arm was in a sling, but his left held the revolver steady.

"You've got some nerve coming here like this, even though it's mildly disconcerting how you found your way here." That was when Adam recognized him. The man he had talked with on the roof.

"I see you're feeling chattier than the last time we met."

"Give me one reason why I shouldn't just shoot you right now."

"You might be a good shooter with both of your hands, but considering, that it wasn't too long I broke your arm, you must still be on pain meds, and the longer you hold out that gun, the more your arm will tremble. You might hit me, but that won’t stop me." Adam listed, his voice steady and calm.

"Then I just have to call out to get everyone in here and on you."

"The moment you open your mouth you get a bullet between your eyes." They stared at each other for a few moments.

"Fuck this shit." The man dropped the gun into his lap and his head fell back on the back of the couch. Adam waited a few seconds before lowering his pistol, but he did not put it away. "You killed two of my men."

"That became your risk the moment you took the contract on me."

"I knew it was too good to be true. So are the rumors true? Were you the one who led Belltower down the garden path in Hengsha? Did you really take out a whole ambush team alone? I bet you did, but there was no box guard, was there? I never believed that part. Shit, I'll never let them drug me like this ever again." Adam put away his gun and moved closer, keeping an eye on the door.

"Who placed the hit on me?"

"First tell me. . . was there a box guard or not?" Adam raised his eyebrows at him, and crossed his arms over his chest.

"There was." He deadpanned and the guy grinned at him then shook his head.

"Shit, thank god I didn't bet with the guys, I'd have so lost. What the fuck are you?"

"Focus, man! Who's your contractor?" Adam was starting to lose his patience.

"No idea, everything came through a dozen proxies. Besides why would I help you? You're already more trouble then you’re worth." His head rolled back again as he stared at the ceiling.

"My guess would be that your client won't be happy that you failed to do the job. That might serve as bad publicity for you." He kept his voice neutral, pissing the guy off wouldn’t help him.

"Yeah, no shit." He looked back at Adam.

"But if you help me track down the one making the calls, I might be able to take them out and we can all pretend this day never happened."

"Tell that to the guys in the body bag." Adam just placed his left hand on his waist, looking at the merc unimpressed. They were willing to shoot down innocent people to get to him, like hell would he let this man guilt trip him.

"Fine, shit, fuck it. I don't know shit, and the boss is unavailable at the moment, but you might be able to find something on his computer. It's one floor above us. You have to get the password on your own though, and if anyone sees you, they'll shoot."

“Thanks" Adam said as he turned toward the corridor leading out of the room.

“Hey, Robocop. . .  If you spare my mates, I'll try to reason with the boss to abandon this job, or at least stall him. But if I hear that anyone got permanently hurt all bets are off, and we'll hunt you down."

"Noted" was all Adam said before slipping out of the room even as he thought ‘ _You can try_.’

Adam met only one man on his way up; he knocked him out and hid the unconscious body behind some crates. He slipped by another pair of guards and had to knock out another man who turned around just a second too soon, but after that he found the computer without any other difficulties. It was protected by high level security, but it wasn't anything he couldn't handle and after an intense minute he was checking through the boss' messages. They were mostly unrelated information, but he did find a chat history. There were no proper names mentioned, just the usernames.

"Pritchard, ever heard of someone who goes online under the name of 'Magpie'?"

 _"Where did you get that name?"_ He definitely sounded alarmed. _"And where the hell are you again?"_

"Never mind that; I'm about to leave anyway. I found the men who attacked me." He added casually.

 _"You what? No wait, you don't understand; that’s not a name you find in the phonebook and how did you even… didn't I tell you to stay put?"_ The raising annoyance and indignation in Pritchard’s voice really shouldn’t have amused him that much, but it did.

"Sorry, mom." Adam felt the smile on his face, he could very well imagine Pritchard rolling his eyes in front of his monitor.

_"Very funny, Jensen. Go home and do us all a favor and stay there until I contact you."_

"How long will it take?" He made a last sweep on the computer before he left it.

 _"It will take however long it takes. Give me four hours."_ Pritchard grunted out before disconnecting. At that time Adam already reached the corridor he came from, but thought about finding an alternate route out. He moved in the opposite direction and found a room where a big part of the outer wall was missing. He looked out from it, scanning the area below him. When he made sure it was empty, he stepped out and left the whole place behind.

 

 

Adam managed to wait for three hours when he had enough. After the long walk back to his apartment, he took a shower and tried to occupy himself with something, but near the end of the third hour he was too restless to do anything. He decided to go to Sarif HQ; anything was better that sitting around in the empty apartment. From the lobby, he climbed the stairs toward his office when he thought better of it and turned right before going to the next floor. He almost automatically opened the security panel to hack it, but stopped himself and just knocked. After a muffled ‘Yes’, he entered the room and closed the door behind himself.

“Hey, I’m glad you decided to show up.” Malik smiled at him from behind her desk and he felt a little smile stretch his lips. He rounded the desk and stood behind the pilot, placing his hands on Malik’s shoulders.

“I see you’re working hard.” He commented as he got a glimpse of what the woman was reading, before she closed everything on her computer.

“Hey, it’s my downtime, I’m allowed to use it as I see fit.” She looked up at him and Adam, giving in to the need, leaned down to place a soft kiss to Malik’s lips. “So, what’ve you been up to?” She asked as she faced forward again.

“Took a walk.” Adam slowly traced his hands down on her forearm, then back to her shoulders as she leaned her head against his chest.

“Run into any armed people wanting to kill you?” She sounded so casual Adam couldn’t help but smile.

“Maybe one or two.” Her shoulders shook with a quiet laugh as she shook her head. It was all so normal his chest felt too tight for a moment until he took a deep breath to ease it. Is this how it could be? Calm and easy; casually touching someone just to feel the contact? It almost felt like it used to. Normal. Something he hadn’t felt for way too long now. Malik’s voice brought him back from his musing.

 “Yes, I’m here.” She sat forward, obviously talking through her infolink, Adam’s hands slid off her shoulders.

“No, I didn’t… what? But he’s right here.” She looked up at Adam confused. “Okay, in a second. . .Pritchard said you just checked in some lab in New York?” She raised her eyebrows and Adam frowned down at her. He stepped back as Malik stood up and headed for the door. Adam followed her, and they went over to the Tech lab. Pritchard looked up from his screen when he heard them.

“And indeed, he’s here. If it wasn’t me who wrote our tracking algorithm, I’d have said there’s something wrong with it.”

“If we all agree that you’re awesome, will you tell us what’s going on?” This came from Malik and Adam had to try really hard to keep a straight face as he saw the pilot’s smirk from the corner for his eye. Pritchard just glared at her before looking back at his monitor muttering something about her spending too much time with a certain someone.

“Not long ago someone with your biometrics…” He nodded in Adam’s direction. “…tried to get through a checkpoint in a lab. Which doesn’t make any sense in more than one way.” He rubbed his forehead and Adam noted how tired he looked.

“To make it work they had to hack the entire system to associate a person with your data, but I see no reason why they would want that, since unless Jensen has a secret life, you have no access in that place at all. Not to mention how they even got hold of your biometrics since we’re the only one who has that data right now.”

Keitner and also ‘Quinn’ came to Adam’s mind, and the time he spent on Rifleman Bank Station.

“An ex-Belltower operative had my data too, but I’d like it more if they had hacked us for it.” Pritchard looked at him questioningly, but when Adam did not further elaborate, he continued:

“I have to disappoint you, they didn’t. Our system’s clean. However they tracked you, it’s not through us. Someone made a lot of effort to get your attention.”

“I’m honored.” Adam said, voice dripping with sarcasm. Malik frowned at him and Pritchard just rolled his eyes.

“The question is why?” The pilot asked, redirecting both men to the problem.

“This can be the first step of an identity thief.” Pritchard mused. “And if some shit goes down, they could pin it on him.” Adam frowned at him, but it was Malik who asked the question he too thought about.

“Even if we have proof he wasn’t even there?”

“As we can claim that their evidence is fake, so can they.” Pritchard shrugged, his fingers drumming on the table softly.

“Then it’s a trap, if I ever saw one.” Malik looked at Adam, and he only nodded in agreement.

“Obviously.” Prichard rubbed his forehead again frowning at his screen. “Or an invitation.”

“Where I come from people invited each other with nice cards or a phone call, and not by hacking into their system.” Malik crossed her arms over her chest clearly not agreeing with Frank’s logic.

“But actually it fits into our hacker’s profile.” Pritchard mused quietly before looking up. “You sure those men were hired through Magpie?”

“Yes.” Adam nodded. “You know that one?”

“I know of them. I have a pretty good guess how they followed my search, but when I tried to trace them back it disappeared. I can’t find them without a direct connection. Or at least something they might have left behind.” Now he sounded frustrated and Adam could relate with it way too much.

“In that case I don’t think I have any other choice than to go there. Malik, can you get me there?”

“We’ll have to go to the NY branch of Sarif Industries, and we’ll need an official cover story why we’d want to hang around there for a longer time, but yes.”

“Can’t you just get us there, drop me off, and leave?” Adam frowned, not liking where this was going.

“Not a chance. Air traffic is still restricted. Besides, I’m not gonna leave you in the middle of an obvious trap.” She looked at him, disapproval clear on her face.

“That’s exactly why I’m not going to risk you getting caught in it.” He turned toward her and tried to push down  the agitation that was rising up in him.

“Like they can’t just shoot us out of the sky like last time, which is why we need that cover story not even mentioning your name.” She sounded irritated too, and Adam opened his mouth to argue back, but Pritchard beat him to it.

“Alright, first of all, please take your lover’s quarrels elsewhere. I‘ll send you the coordinates, Jensen, go debrief the boss and ask for that cover. Malik, please get the papers you’d need.”

They both stared at Pritchard like they were caught, but he was already focusing on his computer. Adam looked at Malik who glared back at him with a light blush on her face before turning away and walking out of the room. Adam found himself staring after her; his brain playing the last few seconds on repeat in his mind before Pritchard’s voice brought him back.

“Did you two really…”

“Don’t even think about finishing that sentence!” Adam warned and left the office without looking back, but he could quite well imagine the smirk on Pritchard’s face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: shit will go down, stay tuned. :D I hope it won't take this long. ^^""


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You look like you could use a little help.”  
> “Zelazny?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For some unknown reason this chapter gave me such a hard time. o_o

"Welcome back, Mr Jensen. You are expected in the main observing room. Third floor, left from the stairs." The receptionist flashed a toothy smile at him again, then turned to the next person at the desk. Adam, not sure what else to do, thanked her and started for the stairs. The moment he walked in they told him he was expected; that didn’t sound good. And what’s with the ‘welcome back’?

_"Do I need to quote the classics?"_

"Thanks Pritchard, I'm well aware it's a trap, we knew that from the beginning. You think I should have sat around and waited for them to try to kill me again?” Adam didn’t even try to contain the sarcasm in his voice, but thankfully Pritchard simply ignored his last sentence. He really wasn’t in the mood to deal with Frank’s wit right now.

 _"There's no com activity, not yet anyway, and the building is full of people at the moment. Still, be careful, just find a secured computer and use the adaptor I gave you."_ Adam didn't deem that with an answer. They had already talked it through, several times actually, how Pritchard might be able to find something Magpie left behind in the system, if he can access it. Adam speculated whether he should go to where he was told or try to sneak about the building. But the cameras pointing at him and the guards following his every move as long as he was in sight decided for him. On the third floor he walked past another guard to a corridor with several doors in a row. He took a quick scan through the walls, but the whole floor seemed empty. He stepped up the the first door and opened it. Nobody stopped him, but when he looked inside he knew why. The room was empty except for some chairs along the window. He stepped back, closing the door behind himself and moved to the next, but it was the same. The last had an ‘Authorised personnel only’ sign on it; he assumed that was the one he was told about. He took another look through the walls; he was still alone there, but that didn't stop the itching on the back of his neck.

 _Here goes nothing,_ he thought as he opened the door. The room was the same as the others, although a bit smaller: a big window on one side with chairs in front of it. Except in one corner, there was a big control panel on the wall and a computer next to it. He frowned, suspicion rising even higher in him. It was the first piece of technology he found on that floor; how convenient. The itching got worse and he actually reached up and tried to move his gear to ease it. Everything in him screamed that he should leave, but he knew he couldn't, not yet. He stalked closer to the window, carefully peeking out of it. Looking out and down he saw a smaller hall with several machines and equipment he didn't recognize. It was empty too, but at least now the observatory part made sense. He went back to the computer, starting it up.

"Pritchard, I found a computer, let's hope it's connected to their network, because I have a feeling I won't have the opportunity to search for another one."

 _"Don't worry, it'll be, unless those people like to complicate their own lives."_ Adam felt a smile stretch his lips, but he didn't say anything, just took out the little device from his pocket and connected it to the computer. He dealt with the low level security within moments. It was almost disappointingly easy.

"It's hacked."

 _"Let's see what we've got."_ Pritchard murmured and Adam knew this’d be the part he hated from the beginning. Waiting. He read through the emails he found there, but there wasn't anything relevant to him, just office notices, date invitations, and yet another nigerian spam mail. He scanned his surroundings again, but he was still alone, which should have been a good thing, although it felt anything but that.

"Not to be impatient Pritchard, but have you got anything yet?"

 _"This isn't like opening up a mailbox, this bastard is not so easy to catch."_ Adam just clenched his jaw, his fingers softly tapping on the table, he knew it would be useless to remind Frank that he was the perfect target like this right now. He looked around, considered going out and scouting the area while waiting, but decided against it. Something moved on the screen and when Adam looked back to it, there was something blinking in the right corner. He hesitated a few seconds, before moving and clicking on it.

 _"Jensen, what did you do?"_ Pritchard's voice was alarmed, but before Adam could answer him a picture of a black and white bird popped up on the screen.

 _“The infamous Adam Jensen. I’m glad you accepted my invitation.”_ There was some static in the voice that came from the speakers, but it was definitely female.

“An email would have been enough.” Pritchard was silent, but Adam was sure he heard it too. They had their hacker.

 _“You are no fun, Jensen.”_ She chuckled.

"But I'm curious actually, why all the trouble to bring me here, Magpie?"

 _"When that first hit on you failed, we realized we need to change tactics, or should I say, they finally started to listen to me. I told them, that some men with guns won't be enough to bring you down."_ Adam’s jaw tightened from the sudden anger in him. Did people’s lives really mean nothing to them?

“Flattery will get you nowhere." He heard her chuckle quietly again. "Are you working for the Illuminati too?”

 _“You can use whatever name you like; the fact won’t change that we are the only hope for this wretched civilization. I wish you could see that too.”_ She sounded resigned and it reminded Adam way too much of the tone Darrow used the last time they talked.

 _“Keep her talking, Jensen”_ came Pritchard’s strained voice in his ear.

"Oh I can see everything, you talk about saving the world, but all you really want is to control it."

 _"Because there is no other way."_ She didn’t even try to deny it, that was a new one.

"There is always another way. And I also see how you don't care about people, only power."

 _"Ah yes, I guess you know how that feels, to have power. Tell me, did you care about those people you killed with your power?"_ Adam's hands tightened into fists on the table and he didn't answer, making the hacker chuckle again. _"See, this is why I was against the idea of killing you. We could really use you. Oh, and tell your friend, that his attempts to find me are almost impressive. With some practice he could be a really good hacker. I could show him some tricks."_

 _"Arrogant little bitch."_ Adam heard Pritchard's quiet grunt and it made him smirk.

"He says he's not interested. So all this ‘invitation’ was actually just a cyber pissing contest? You're not the first hacker I’ve had to hunt down. I will find you too."

 _“We'll see about that. I’m afraid our time is up. Good luck."_ With a blink the picture disappeared and the connection was lost.

“Pritchard, tell me you got her.”

_“Almost, she threw me off the grid, but I’m on her trail. In the mean time, you have to get out of there, that trap we were waiting for is about to close!”_

There was only one exit from the room, and on his radar hostiles started to pop up in that direction. He pulled out the adapter from the computer, took a chair to jam the door and turned toward the big window. He picked up another chair and threw it at the glass. Thankfully, it wasn't reinforced so it flew out and landed in the hall with a loud crash. Adam heard a loud thud from the door, and without hesitation he jumped through the hole. He landed hard, and a quick scan through the walls showed him that there were people on the right side, so he sprinted to the exit on the left. As he burst through the door he found himself in a dimly lit service corridor. He could only hope that it wouldn’t take him to another unit, since he had no idea how many people were after him this time. He saw a door at the end of the corridor and wondered what might be on the other side, when he noticed an air vent entrance. He crouched down without hesitation, it was always better to stay out of sight. In the duct, he moved past the hall again. He heard men giving out orders to cover all exits and the permission to shoot on sight, since the target was augmented, armed and dangerous. Well it was all true, but he wouldn't be a danger to them if they’d let him explain the situation. Too bad nobody ever listens to him.

He went on forward until the path ended. He peeked out to what looked like a storage room then moved out from the vent, dusting his coat off. He walked to the door, but froze with his hand on the doorknob when his radar showed someone on the other side. He waited until the little triangle moved past him on the radar then opened the door quickly scanning the corridor. Of course the man stood between him and his way out, so Adam silenced his steps and walked up to the man quickly taking him down and moving on. He noted the dark uniform and the emblem on the man's forearm, but it took him a few seconds to remember where he saw it. He cursed silently as he hurried along the corridor; it was the NY SWAT. Why were they involved in all this? Well, he can figure out that later, now he needed to get out of there. According to his map there was an exit on the other side of the building which seemed a better idea than the main entrance. Unfortunately he had to cross an open area to get to it, not that he had any other choice. He had a bad feeling about it even before his radar picked up the three men scouting the room. Adam resisted the urge to swear as he looked around in the room quickly. There wasn’t many places to take cover, but maybe he'd be able to sneak by the series of columns on the side. He only reached the first one when he heard the shout.

"There he is!"

"Ah shit." Adam ducked behind the column pressing his back to it, and in the next moment bullets started to hit it from the other side. They pinned him down, he could hear the heavy ammo eating into the concrete around him. He didn't even dare to peek out, but his radar showed that they were coming from his other side too.

 _“You look like you could use a little help.”_ The voice in his ear was way too cheerful and for a moment Adam thought he was imagining things.

“Zelazny?” Adam asked in disbelief as a concussion grenade exploded in the room. He took a quick look from his cover to see the path cleared ahead of him. Without any further hesitation he started running toward the door, knocking out a man on his way, who stood on unsteady legs.  

“What are you doing here?” The man in question had a shotgun in one hand as he held the door open with the other.

“Later, first let’s get out of here.” Zelazny closed the door and moved a vending machine to block it. “This won’t keep them in long, come.”

“Try not to kill them, it’s just the local SWAT.”

“I know.” They run down another hall and a corridor, then one of the doors opens and a man waves at them. Zelazny nodded to Adam and they entered the room, the man locking the door behind them.

"Before you even ask, that window looks over the back street and we've got a car waiting for us, but before we can go I need some answers." Zelazny told him before Adam could open his mouth.

"You're not the only one. Should we start with what are you doing here exactly?” Adam said between breaths as he waited for his heartbeat to slow down. Zelazny considered him for a few seconds before he started to speak.

“You deserve the long version, but we don’t have time for that. I promise to tell you everything, but right now I wouldn’t hang around for too long, if I can help it. SWAT was tipped of by someone," Zelazny continued when Adam didn’t say anything, "but we don’t know yet by whom.”

"If only our friends here would be more cooperative we'd have been gone a long time by now." This came from the other side of the room and Adam only now saw the two figures sitting on the ground. He moved closer to see the two SWAT members tied up with three of Zelazny's men standing above them.

"We have nothing to say to terrorists!" One of them said, he had bruises on his cheek and Adam wondered if he got that when they caught him or after. The other was a dark skinned woman, staring at the wall with a hard face. Adam frowned and stepped towards them.

"Let me try." He looked at Zelazny who shrugged, then Adam crouched down to be on eye level with their captives. "You were sent here to take out a terrorist, but there ain’t any, someone lied to you. We were all played, but since they are after me, I want to know who."

"Why should I believe anything you say?" Adam resisted the urge to sigh, the man was stubborn and they didn't have time for this.

"Sir, I know him." They all looked at the woman who was sitting silently all this time. "We had a co-op mission four years ago. Adam Jensen, right?" Adam stared at her for a moment.

"Sorry, I don't remember you."

"I don't expect you to, you were busy with other things." She had a sad half smile on her face and Adam had to clench his jaw to not let the grimace out. That's one way to put it. That was another mission he didn't like to remember.

"Yeah, I remember now. I also remember how you were fired from your unit. That was a long time ago, I saw people change sides overnight." The man said, obviously not convinced.

"Not him." She insisted. It was a nice change to see he had left a positive impression on someone. Adam ignored the man, giving the cooperative one his full attention.

"Where did the order came from?"

"Higher up. It was a tip, we don't know from where, but Josh Waters will know." She answered in a defeated tone.

"Can you get the information without beating up anyone?" Adam asked and Zelazny raised his eyebrows at him, he actually looked offended.

"They are already on it. Time to go." He looked down at the two sitting on the floor. "We'd appreciate if you could call off your men, so we don't have to hurt anyone."

"You got to be kidding me." The guy actually gaped at him.

"Sir, they could have slaughtered us with all this, but they didn't. I told you something was not right with this mission." The woman’s tone was hard and Adam had a feeling this might not be the first time they had this conversation. ‘Sir’ shifted uncomfortably and glared at her for a few seconds, but she just stared back at him unwavering.

"Fine, if you turn off the jamming I'll call off the team. If what you say is true and someone _is_ dirty in the system, we want to know about it." He looked back at Adam with angry eyes.

"No, you really don't. This goes much deeper than you can imagine" Adam said, voice impassive.

"You expect me to just let it go?"

"No, I want you to believe me, that whoever is responsible, will pay for it." He also activated his CASIE mod, releasing the pheromones to close this quickly. He saw Zelazny rub his nose with a smirk, but he ignored the merc.

“Alright, man” said the guy slowly. “I give you one chance. But remember, I know who you are, in case you don’t keep your word!” Adam just nodded, then stood up.

"Jensen" he turned toward the voice and saw that Zelazny and his men were halfway through the window. When he joined them in leaving, they were already in a plain van. He hopped in, they shut the door behind him and drove away.

"It'll take some time to get the information."

"That's fine, in the meantime let’s hear that long version.”Adam said as he leaned back in his seat, looking at the merc expectantly. Zelazny seemed to think a few moments on what to say.

“Let’s just say, that our little house cleaning didn’t go entirely unnoticed. I ran into some… people while digging around for information. As it turned out, our case wasn’t so unique and they too were after the kinds of people who… created us.” Adam raised his eyebrows at him and Zelazny shrugged casually. “We made an agreement. I wouldn’t say I fully trust them, but so far it seems that our goals lie in the same direction.”

“Just be careful, things are not always what they seem at first.” Adam debated whether to ask for details or not, but decided not to. He was sure if Zelazny wanted to or could tell him more, he would have.

“Yeah, I gathered that much.” The merc said with a little sad smile. “But actually I’m here right now because of them. Someone’s been using the local law enforcement as a personal clean up service. Nothing major, just some false arrests where the subject never made it out of prison alive or some civs got caught up in a fire fight. But there is a pattern if you look close enough. We’ve been in town for a few days now, gathering intel when the call came, and we found out that shit was going down here. ”

“And you rushed to my rescue?” Adam asked with a hint of a smile in his voice, which made Zelazny grin and shake his head.

“Well, I did owe you one, I guess that makes us even now.” Adam raised his eyebrows at him questioningly, so he continued: “You convinced Dr. Wing that we hadn’t just gone rogue; I had to contact him again later on and he assured me that he was willing to help us. And he does whenever he can.” Adam didn't know what to say to that, so he just nodded; a part of him was actually glad that things turned out this way.

“Anyway, we didn’t know if this was related to our interest or not, our order was to investigate, but when I saw you, I knew it had to be another clean up. Unless I missed something…?” He made it into a question, but his eyes gleamed with humor so Adam just glared at him for the implication that he’d become a terrorist since their last meeting. Too bad the hard look was lost behind his shades, but his silence was answer enough. Zelazny grinned at him again. “In any case, I have no idea what you’re doing here, but your timing was excellent.”

“I’m always happy to serve.” Adam said and the sarcasm in his voice made the merc smirk.

"Yes, talk to me." Zelazny’s face became focused as he looked away, listening. "Got it, stand down until we get there." He looked back to Adam, serious again. "SWAT's clean, the tip came from a William E. Kimmel, some department chief in the local Sarif Industries.”

“A Sarif employee?” Adam frowned at him. "How is that even possible?"

"It seems he has some connection with the bosses."

“And that’s enough to order a whole SWAT unit out for a sweep?” Adam couldn’t keep the incredulity out of his voice.

“We don’t know yet how it was possible, but you have to know, as soon as the word ‘augmented’ gets into the picture everyone gets trigger happy. The shit last week didn’t really help that.” It hurt, but Adam had to admit Zelazny was right. And he wondered shortly what kind of connections the merc had exactly, since that went pretty damn fast, even by his standards. But he didn’t ask, there was no need and he had other things to worry about. "He also could be just a middle man, we’ll see if we can dig up some dirt on the guy. Where should we drop you off?"

"I need to get my pilot" Adam said without thinking. Just as he finished the sentence Malik's voice came into his ears.

 _“Jensen, I’ve got bad news.”_ He resisted the urge to groan.

“Is there any other kind?” He saw Zelazny's smirk from the corner of his eye, but he ignored the man.

 _“We’re grounded."_ She sounded downright pissed, it wasn’t something Adam heard often from her. _"They threw me out of the hangar. Some guy waltzed in and started bullshitting me about new regulations, and how there was some kind of confusion with my clearance. I have to go see some guy named Kimmel and he can give my authorization back or whatnot. I’m on my way there, but I can smell bureaucracy even from here.”_ Hearing that name a terrible feeling settled in Adam’s mind.

“No, Malik, you shouldn’t go to him!”

 _“What? Why?”_ She asked incredulously, before confusion crept into her voice.

“I’ll explain everything later, just get out of there. Go someplace public with a lot of people around.” The vehemence in his voice surprised even him.

 _"Alright, fine… I know the drill, take it easy."_ She broke the connection, not that Adam knew what to say to that. His mind was still occupied with his previous outburst. Did she really sound amused or was he imagining things? He shook his head and pushed the thoughts away, now he had other concerns to deal with.

"Can you get me near the SI building?" Zelazny just nodded.

“Go to this place." He handed Adam a paper with an address on it. "You’ll be safe there. You go and chase whatever you’re after, and leave Kimmel to us.”

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You know, this is almost like a date. Except the part where people are trying to kill you, but besides that it’s not all that bad.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I managed another update before this year run out. \o/ Sorry about the wait again, got some hc real life sh*t to deal with. :/

Ten minutes later Adam was walking down the street, carefully avoiding the cameras he could see around the Sarif building and also keeping an eye out for company.

"Pritchard, can you tell me where's Malik?"

 _"You're alive and in one piece, good to know."_ He sounded annoyed, but Adam didn’t find it in himself to care at the moment.

"Just send me her coordinates, Francis and spare me your wit."

 _"Aren't you in a bad mood, well my bad for being concerned. Who would go and find that little shit if you die on my watch?"_ Now he sounded distracted, the usual sarcasm was missing from his voice almost completely, but Adam wasn’t in the right mood to ponder on it.

"I'm touched. Did you find ‘that little shit’?"

 _"Not yet. She disappeared completely, but the next time she goes online I'll have her."_ Adam actually stopped walking.

"The next time— You expect me to wait... Who knows when that'll be. She could as well skip town—"

 _"Calm down, Jensen. I know her type. She'll surface soon enough. Never underestimate an addict. You should see Malik's location now. Stay out of trouble."_ Pritchard was gone before Adam could say anything and he resisted the urge to sigh. The little x appeared on his radar so he started to walk again.

He found Malik in a coffee shop sitting in a booth, nursing a big glass cup in her hands. Seeing her safe eased some of the tension from his body he hadn’t even realised was there. Malik smiled at him when he walked up to her.

"Can I at least drink this, before we have to do anything?" The question surprised Adam and he sank down on the seat across from the pilot, even though he wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.

"Sure." He hoped his voice didn't sound as defeated as he felt himself.

"Things are that bad, huh?" She raised the cup to her mouth taking a gulp. "You look like you could use a drink." Adam rubbed his forehead looking around in the shop searching for anything suspicious.

"I could, but we're still on the clock. This shit goes deeper than we thought and now I have to sit around and twiddle my thumbs ‘till that little fucker surfaces again." Malik raised her eyebrows at him.

"I see. I want details though." She drank the rest of her drink and looked at him expectantly.

"Not here. You ready?" Malik just nodded and grabbed her bag along with another one.

“I’ve got your stuff too.” She handed the bag over to him.

“Thanks” Adam said as he took it from the pilot.

"We should get some food on our way. I'm kind of hungry and I'm sure you should eat too." Adam nodded as he stood up.

“You know, this is almost like a date. Except the part where people are trying to kill you, but besides that it’s not all that bad.” Malik smiled at him as she started for the door, but for Adam it took several moments to make his body move. She was right, but it shouldn't be like this. He wanted to spend time with her, but not like this, constantly looking over his shoulder, expecting something bad to happen. Involving Malik was a mistake. Even if something in his chest clenched at the thought of the pilot not being there with him.

The address Zelazny gave him turned out to be a motel a few blocks away. The man at the reception didn't really look at them, he just took the money and handed them a key with possibly the most bored expression Adam had ever seen. He had his doubts, but the place was clean and actually quite nice. After looking around Malik disappeared into the bathroom stating that she needed a shower, and Adam got rid of his gear. He had no idea how long they’d have to wait, he wasn’t going to sit around in armour. After Malik emerged from the bathroom in sweatpants and a tank top they settled themselves down to eat the food they bought earlier. Adam sat on the couch while Malik folded her legs under herself in an armchair. Adam did his best not to think too hard even if his mind was set on to do just the opposite.

"You do realise you haven't said a word to me since we left the café." He looked up at Malik, frowning.

"I've been talking the whole way here."

"Sure, you told me what happened today, but that's it. You also stopped eating like five minutes ago." Adam looked down on the half full box in his hand and with a sigh he placed it on the coffee table. "Are you still pondering on what I said about the date-stuff earlier?" His first instinct was to deny it, but something must have shown on his face, because Malik grimaced, put down her food and stood up.

“Hey, I knew what I was getting myself into.” She stepped in front of him, looking down at him.

“But you shouldn’t have to.” He looked away, but a moment later forced himself to look up at the woman.

“Let me decide that. Besides, you’re worth it.” She touched his face and something in Adam’s chest felt too tight again. He wasn’t sure what kind of expression was on his face so he rested his forehead on Malik’s stomach as he put his hands to her thighs, guiding her closer. The pilot moved her hand to his head, her fingers brushing his hair lightly. Adam looked up at her again and Malik pushed him back so she could lean down and kiss him. Her knee brushed his thigh as she put her leg on the sofa for balance. The kiss was slow and lazy; it felt nice after all the rush that day. He moved his hands to her hips, to have a firm hold and started to pull her until she gave in and straddled his lap, breaking the kiss and laughing out quietly in the process. Adam enclosed her in his arms, his head resting on her shoulder. The contact felt nice, it let him relax.

“Do we know how much time we have to sit around?” She started to play with his hair again.

“No idea.”

“You wanna catch some sleep while we have the chance?” Adam felt her breath on his ear, making him lean closer for more contact.

“I don’t think I could sleep, even if I wanted to. Are you tired?”

“Nah, too much going on.” She shook her head.

“Yeah.” He agreed, even though sitting there with Malik on his lap he was pretty comfortable. She was warm and smelled faintly like the soap she used. But he could still feel that sweet scent underneath. He couldn’t pinpoint what it reminded him of, but he knew it was her own. He brushed his nose up along her neck taking deep breaths and kissing his way on her jaw to her lips, to claim her mouth again, more heated this time. She responded with opening up to him, she buried her fingers into his hair, pulling him closer. Malik moaned as she pulled back just enough to look into his eyes for a long moment. A small smile spread on her lips as she traced down her hands on his chest and grabbed the hem of his t-shirt. Without breaking eye contact she started to pull it up and eventually off of him. Adam raised his arms obediently and Malik tossed the cloth away without any care where it might land. She placed her hands on his neck, slowly tracing them down to his chest; carefully avoiding his metal implants, Adam noticed.  Her eyes followed her hands as she traveled further down. She bit into her lower lip and Adam’s breath stuck in his lungs from the excitement he saw in her eyes. It was almost too much, he avoided human contact for so long, but right now he wanted it more than anything. He wasn’t sure how much he could handle, but heaven help him he wanted her touch.

Adam forced himself to exhale and grabbed Malik’s hands gently, moving them away. A sudden hint of fear run through her face, but it all disappeared when Adam placed her hands back on his neck touching her fingers to the metal in his skin. Malik’s face lit up as she understood the silent permission and pressed her hands to him. There was such hunger in her eyes that Adam had a hard time remembering he needed to breath. He knew the implants in his chest were just a bit below body temperature and the skin was numb around the metal, but when Malik touched him his whole chest buzzed with the sensation. The pilot leaned closer pressing a kiss to his lips, then moved down to bite his neck, and Adam let out a soft moan. He moved his hands up on Malik’s thighs, grabbed her ass and moved her even closer. That made her chuckle into his skin most likely because, well, he was hard. He slid his hands under Malik’s top, wanting to touch even if his brain recognized the sensation as human skin and nothing more. She raised her head and kissed him again, rolling her hips down which made Adam groan into the kiss; the friction was sweet, but not nearly enough. He moved his mouth to Malik’s neck, licking and biting while paying close attention to which touch made her gasp. She rolled her hips again and he thrust up in response when…

 _“Jensen, we’ve got a hit!”_ Adam froze for a moment then dropped his head to Malik’s shoulder.

“Really Francis, right now?” He was sure his voice was just as strained as he felt himself.

 _“What, I thought you hated sitting around and you’d be eager to act.”_ There was some confusion in his voice, but at the end of the sentence just the sarcasm remained.

“Oh, I’m more than eager, have no doubt about that.” His sentence ended in a hiss as Malik rolled her hips again and Adam had to clench his jaw not to curse out loud. The pilot’s shoulder shook under his head and he realised she was laughing. Damn her to everything, she was laughing.

 _“Good, listen…”_ Adam raised his head to glare at Malik, but she just giggled at him while Pritchard was talking in his ear about proxies and triangulating satellites or whatnot. He grabbed Malik’s ass again, lifted her up, and with a simple movement he put her down beside himself on the sofa; making her squeak.

_“What was that?”_

“Just focus on the task at hand, Pritchard. You got an address?” He rubbed his forehead trying to concentrate; not having Malik sitting on his dick definitely made thinking easier. The search could only trace Magpie to a block, but Pritchard found a house with some impressive electricity usage. How he even managed that, Adam didn't want to know. It wasn't perfect, but it was the best they got.

“It's not exactly in the neighborhood.'' Adam commented as he inspected the map Prichard sent him. He moved to the other room to put on his gear again, but first spent a few awkward seconds searching for his shirt very carefully not even glancing at Malik’s direction.

 _"There should be a car rental not far from where you are, but if you prefer public transport..."_ He could hear the smirk in Frank’s voice.

"The rental will do just fine." Adam grunted as he finished fastening the last belt and walked to the other room to find Malik sitting in the same place he put her, looking at him with an unreadable expression. After some thought he stepped to her and took out his handgun offering it to the pilot.

"You know how to use it?" She stared at the gun then back at him before nodding and taking it from him. "Just in case."

"Yeah, though I'm pretty sure if I got into a situation whereI'd need it, I'm doomed anyway." She tried to keep her voice light, but Adam could feel the worry out of it anyway. He leaned down, his arms resting on the couch around her.

"Malik..."

"No, I'll be fine, you go and get this shit done. If anything happens, I’ll call you."

"Okay." They stared at each other for a few seconds before Malik spoke up again.

"You can call me by my first name, you know." That took Adam by surprise.

"That's only for emergencies." She huffed out a small laugh and shook her head.

"Right. In that case, be careful, _spy boy_." Adam smiled back before closing the distance between them for a kiss.

"I’ll be back as soon as I can."

 

At the car rental, the clerk appeared two seconds after he entered and listened carefully to what he wanted, then responded with his spiel. After five minutes Adam debated whether to just go on by foot or to shove the credit chips down the guy’s throat to make him shut up. He never thought that he’d ever use the social enchancer to shut someone up, but there must be a first time for everything, he thought as he joined the afternoon traffic. It was a lazy ride, apparently everyone had all the time in the world and since Adam didn’t want to draw attention to himself he had no other choice than line up with the rest of the cars at their moderate speed. After ten minutes he let the car’s system take the wheel since it was boring and his mind strayed no matter how hard he tried to stay focused.

In the last six mouths he was more conscious about his body than he was as a teenager and there were things he just refused to even think about. He didn’t like to be touched, even if it was the doctors poking him on a check up, reflex testing or whatnot. For the first few weeks it felt all wrong and it took a lot of effort to reach the point where he could say that it wasn’t wrong, only different. He remembered how the things felt when he touched them, and his brain filled in the blanks, but he wondered when will he forget how the touch of human skin really feels like? Scientists and engineers might come up with even more improved sensors for prosthetics, but he knew it never would be the same. In these past few weeks he learned that he could rely on his abilites, and learned how to work together with his body again. Even if the thought still left him bitter, and it was always on the back of his mind. But he was tired of it. Being angry with the past wasn’t helping him and he was also tired of chasing it.

He wouldn’t forget what happened, he couldn’t forget, but maybe now he could start looking forward. With Malik, maybe he could do that finally. He rememered how she looked at him, like there was nothing wrong, how he wanted her to touch him, even if he despised human contact for months. He wanted it and that was a first in a long time now. Thankfully, a soft beep alerted him that he was nearing his destination interrupting his musing before he could go further on that train of thought. He rubbed his face and forced his brain to focus on the present again. He wished he had a better plan than to find the house and improvise, but right now that was all he had. It left him uneasy, but he pushed it to the back of his mind as he took over the wheel again.

He parked the car at a safe distance from the house and went on by foot. He walked along two or even three story family houses; the whole place was something he only saw on tv when he was a kid. This was the NY version of upper Hengsha, neat houses; some even had gardens. He wondered how the city managed to keep it this clean and organised. The only people he saw on the streets were the locals or patrolling cops. But he wasn’t there to wonder about the privileges of the rich so he refocused on his task by doing his best to avoid the cops and cameras he could see. Technically, he wasn’t trespassing or anything (not yet anyway), but it was better to stay out of sight. As he got closer to his goal, he started to notice idle people walking or chatting on the street who otherwise appeared normal, but Adam’s eyes could see the well concealed weapons on them. Either there was some kind of paranoid rich gun club in the neighborhood, or he was going in the right direction.

When he reached his target he had to spend a few minutes crouched by a bush, waiting for an opening in the patrol before he could slip up to the entrance. There was also a camera and a console on the door with high level security, but after an intense hacking, Adam managed to enter the house just as the camera turned his way again. The house was dark around him, and a quick scan showed him that it was completely empty. He swallowed the curse that was on his tongue.

“Pritchard, I’m in, but there’s no one here.”

 _“Someone’s eating up all the juice, so there must be something”_ came Frank’s response and Adam looked around again. It looked like any other house, except all the things looked unused. Maybe he had the wrong place after all?

“Are you sure this is the place? It’s all dark in here.”

_“Yes, your signal comes from the same coordinates. Did you try the basement?”_

“I was thinking the same.” Adam said as he looked for the entrance. By the door he had to hack another high security console and when he found the switch hiding behind some cardboard boxes he was sure he was in the right place. Either that or he found a national treasure; otherwise all this security would be ridiculous.

“I found something.”

_“Just be careful, with all this security she might be already aware that you’re there.”_

“So I should expect a trap? Thanks Pritchard, the thought never occurred to me.”

 _“Remind me again, why do I even care.”_ Frank grunted out before disconnecting and Adam smirked as he flipped the switch. The wall opened up on his left and behind it was a stairway leading down, well lit, which stood in contrast to the shadows in the house. He descended carefully, but when he reached the end of the stairs, a flash of light blinded him for a moment, and his HUD blinked out. He had a moment to recognize the effects were similar to an EMP mine before pain bloomed out in his head and he collapsed to the floor. Through blurry vision he saw a pair of legs approach him before the darkness swallowed him completely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit just got real! I hope I'll be able to update sooner this time. ^^""


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Please Jensen, I might be a magpie who likes shiny information, but I’m not that cheap.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *super late as always* I know and I'm so sorry. orz

Adam jolted awake, his eyes snapping open just for him to squeeze them shut again as pain stabbed into them. His head throbbed as he tried to move it; he was sure that was how a heavy reboot felt like while you were having a hangover. It took him a few moments to realise that he was lying on the floor, most likely, since it was hard under him as he tried to make his body move. The pain in his head flared up as he shifted so he spent a few seconds to just breath and wait for it to ease up. That was the moment he realised he couldn’t feel his arms.

“Finally. I started to think I’d need a bucket of water or something.” Adam tried again and opened his eyes slowly. Everything was blurry for a moment or two, before he could focus on the girl sitting in a bean bag chair on his right. His vision glitched every few seconds and that really didn’t help his headache.

“Magpie, I presume.” He managed, but his throat was dry, making his voice even raspier than the usual. How long was he out? The hacker smiled and bowed her head without breaking eye contact. The movement made her colourful dreads fall over her shoulder and Adam felt his eyes widen as he noticed some of them were actually cables.

“I have to admit, I’m impressed. I’m always prepared for unexpected guests, but for you to find me so soon… I might have been wrong about your friend -- Francis Pritchard, was it? He’s wasting his talent with you people.” Her grin wasn’t friendly at all.

“I don’t think he would agree. He made his choices long ago, but you might be too young to remember when he was still in business.” Adam almost expected some snarky remark from Pritchard in his ear, but there was only silence, which meant his infolink was down too. Shit.

“Just for the record, I’m older than I look, not by much though.” She leaned forward and placed her elbows on her knees, allowing her black and white top’s sleeve to slide up; revealing her augmented left arm. She flashed another wolfish grin at him.

“Good, I’d have hated if I had to hurt a kid.” Adam grunted out as he tried to move again. She laughed out this time.

“You really are the comedian. I wonder if it will hold when you realise the shit you are in.”

“I was about to say the same to you.” The throbbing in his head finally eased, so Adam could think again and took a quick look around. The room was full of computers and all kind of other gadgets; it reminded him the server rooms he saw, but this looked like she actually lived here.

“Okay, tough guy, let me help you out.” She rolled to her feet and stalked over to him; the dark jeans and the trainers were faintly familiar to him. She grabbed his gear with her left hand and yanked him from the floor to a sitting position. His head swam for a long moment from the change in position, but he managed to stay stable as the girl released him and stepped back immediately. What the hell was going on with him?

“Now take a look behind you.” Adam really didn’t want to just do as she said, but he still couldn’t feel his arms and something was definitely not right here. He saw a machine behind himself with all kind of lights and displays, but he had no idea what those could be, the angle wasn’t right for him to see them. There was a cable leading toward him, most likely to his hands, but he couldn’t see that, because his arms were tied together at his back.

“How do you like it? The idea came from Belltower actually; that Burke fellow had nice ideas I could use. Get this: an EMP field generator you can carry around. You met the chair, didn’t you? Nice, but cumbersome, I like these shackles much more. There’re not perfect yet, but would do at the moment.” Adam clenched his jaw and swore inwardly. Now he remembered when was the last time he felt this numbness in his body. Fuck.

“And even if they don’t, this little fellow is still here with me.” Adam’s attention was on her again as he turned his head to see the hacker lean on a modified security bot he couldn’t see previously.

“Nice dog you have there.” Adam said as the awful realisation slowly sank in his mind that all his augmentations were down. It made his pulse jump, but he forced himself to stay calm.

“Unfortunately I can’t play fetch with it, so it’s more like a butler. Lets in the guests and chases away the unwanted ones or keeps them in check.” Adam leveled the girl with a look, but she just shrugged grinning again. Adam took a deep breath before speaking again.

“So what do you want with me?” He did his best to keep his voice neutral as his brain worked double time to find a way out of this situation. In the mean time, maybe he could get some useful information out of the girl. “Oh, come on, if you still wanted me dead I would be. So what’s the deal?” He asked when Magpie feigned innocence at first.

“The deal is, that I’m curious about things. A lot of things actually.” She hopped up onto the bot, legs dangling above its wheels while she traced a finger on the machine gun attached to its side. “First of all what did you do to Windmill? You certainly left an impression on him.” The question surprised Adam, but he kept his voice passive.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t be like this.” The hacker pouted. “I caught him just before he skipped town, saying he was fed up with the neighborhood and wants to try something new. Might also go for a tall one with a beard next time. I had no idea what he meant at that time. Then I heard the shit that was going down in Hengsha, just the time you were around, too. C’mon, I wanna know what happened.” She looked really excited and that alone was enough for him not to answer.

“Maybe if you let me go, I tell you what you want to know.”

“Please Jensen, I might be a magpie who likes shiny information, but I’m not _that_ cheap.” Her voice became hard at the end of the sentence and her mocking smile disappered too.

“Then you’ll have to wonder.” Adam just stared at her impassively.

“Well, you might change your mind in time. And there are other things you could tell me.” She hopped off the bot, strode to a computer,and sat down on the chair before it. After some typing she studied the data running through the screen.

“You are one fascinating contraption, a fucking work of art.” Her voice sounded distant as she stared at the monitor; Adam recognised a full body scan of himself and the anger her words caused went to rage in him in seconds. He lurched forward but it was as far as he could go, since his limbs didn’t obey him. The bot also moved, rolling just a bit closer, the guns trained on him, so he clenched his jaw and forced himself to calm down. “Don’t look so upset; it was a compliment. And you might wanna stay put, do not give my buddy here ideas.” She looked back at him with a lopsided smile. He just stared back at her.

“Do you have any idea about the amount of money you’re carrying around?” Magpie continued on, there was something in her voice that almost sounded like awe. “It really makes me wonder, what makes you so important? And how do you even deal with this, what Nu-poz dose are you on?” Adam stayed silent and looked away from the girl. This was getting dangerous. He assumed all the Illuminati already knew where Megan’s research came from and they thought his value didn’t change  depending on whether he was alive or not. But apparently it was more complicated. Wasn’t it always?

“I see you don’t feel chatty. Well, we’ll have to work on that.” She turned back to the screen leaving Adam to his thoughts for the moment. He needed to get rid of those shackles, before he could do anything, but he had no idea how to do that. They were powered by the generator behind him, but the cable looked reinforced, there was no way to rip them out, especially since, he couldn’t even stand up. The girl was absorbed in the data on the screen, she muttered something from time to time, but he couldn’t know how long would she keep herself occupied. And the bot’s full attention was still on him. As he looked around again searching for something, anything that could help him, the little monitor on the bot’s “head” flickered before it went dark.

_Adam, it’s Eliza. I was trying to reach you._

He had a hard time reading the text, since his vision was still glitching and he spent another moment staring as the meaning reached his brain. Eliza; but how did she even—

_I want  to help, what do you need? I can hear you through the bot._

Adam glanced at the girl, but she was still absorbed in whatever she was reading. ‘Need to get rid of the generator behind me’ he whispered and stared at the monitor that went dark again. There was nothing for almost a full minute, before the letters appeared again.

_I can blackout the whole room, but I’m only able to overload the fail-safe system for just a few seconds, before the power comes back. The same goes for the bot._

Adam nodded in understanding his brain working on his options. He couldn’t know if he could rip the cable out in one go, most likely he would need that few seconds, to get all his augmentations online again. He needed to get rid of the generator permanently, preferably before the bot shot him down. His guns and tools were gone, but he still had the Typhoon. The mental process to trigger it was easy and fast enough, but he never used it with his hands tied to his back. Well, this day was already full of first times, maybe his luck will hold. He couldn’t move his arms, but positioned himself carefully so, that the ammo would surely hit the generator or if he’s quick enough maybe the bot will do that for him. It was risky as hell, but he didn’t have any other options. ‘Do it’ he nodded to Eliza and got a reply almost instantly.

_Get ready. And good luck._

Adam let a little smilestretch his lips. He might not admit it to anyone, but he was starting to get found of the AI. A countdown started at the screen from five and Adam took a deep breath. When the lights went out he heard Magpie’s surprised voice, but ignored it, along with the system reboot informations on his HUD. He moved his arms as far as he could and activated the Typhoon. Just as the lights flickered back on, there was an explosion behind him and the girl screamed. Adam hit the floor hard and in the next moment the bot fired at the place where he was a moment earlier causing another set of explosions.

“Hold fire fucking dammit!” Adam heard the hacker’s scream over all the noise, but tried not to pay attention to all this, just focused on getting rid of the shackles. He flexed his arms, trying to brake them loose. For a moment nothing happened and the thought crossed Adam’s mind, that he didn’t have enough power to break the damn thing, but then the metal shrieked and his arms were free. He jumped to his feet and with three long strides he was at the girl. He grabbed her augmented arm as she raised it and forced it to her back, turning her toward the bot as a shield while he ejected his blade on his left hand and pressed it to her throat.

“No” she hissed. “I can’t believe— How can you get out of every fucking—” her words died out as Adam touched the blade to her skin, while keeping an eye also on the bot. It raised its guns at them but stayed where it was.

“I have a lot of friends. As for yours: is anyone else involved in this with you beside Kimmel?”

“That crazy son of a bitch, all this shit is his fault” her voice was getting frantic. “I never should have let him drag me into this fuckery—”

“Answer me!” He raised his voice and increased the pressure on her left arm, it had the desired effect, the hacker flinched.

 _“Now, Mr. Jensen, I must ask you to calm down, before anybody gets hurt.”_ The voice came from one of the computers on his left, but he didn’t dare to take his eyes off the bot. Magpie raised her right hand and grabbed his forearm, but had no chance to move it. Adam could see from the corner of his eyes that all the previous confidence was gone from her face.

“I’m perfectly calm, I’m just getting real tired of you people. Who the fuck are you?”

_“That’s something you don’t need to know, if it was up to me, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. Things are starting to get out of hand.”_

“You try to kill me, I come and hunt you down, you people really aren’t getting the massage, are you?” His hand was steady at the girl’s throat, but his patience was at its end as he stared into the barrel of the bot’s guns.

“Do something about this, for fuck’s sake!” Magpie demanded from the man on the other end of the line. Adam tightened his hold on her, but beside that he wasn’t sure what to do with her yet.

 _“I’m afraid I can’t. You got yourself into this situation, I told you to call off the chase. I’m sorry, but I can’t let anything fall into his hands.”_ There was actually some regret in his voice, but it sounded more like he was talking about spoiled food.

“You can’t do this Stanton, not to me, don’t you dare—” she shouted, but her words stuck in her throat. Her eyes rolled back to her head, blood dripping from her nose as her whole body jerked forward slicing the girl’s throat on Adam’s blade.

“Jesus” he swore, but in the next moment the bot fired at them. Adam tossed the hacker’s body to the bot and dived to right. He faintly registered pain in his side, he must have been hit, but didn’t have time to care about it. The bot avoided the girl’s body and turned his way, but it gave Adam enough time to roll toward it. He landed beside the bot in a crouched position and grabbed the machine gun’s barrel jacket as it fired again. He used it to stand up and keeping the bot in its place as he shoved his blade into the other gun, cutting through everything until it stopped firing. Then he tightened his hold on the gun, twisting and tearing till that one was completely useless, too. He stepped back and the bot turned its head left and right as if confused what was going on, but Adam ignored it. He glanced at the body on the floor lying in a pool of blood and felt the curse on his tongue before he raised his head and took in the damage in the room. The generator was in bits, the fire was stopped by some kind of white foam, but it was still smoking along with all the other machines that were hit by the bot.

 _“You caused far more damage than we anticipated.”_ Adam looked for the source of the voice, but all he found was an unknown symbol on one of the screens.

“It wasn’t me who just killed his own man here.” He glared at the monitor more frustrated than ever before.

 _“No, but you compromised her.”_ He said it in such a matter-of-fact voice, that Adam wondered if he was actually speaking to an AI and not a real person.

“She tried to kill me.”

 _“Fair point. In the future we’ll try not to make the same mistakes. Let me offer you a deal, Mr. Jensen. If you don’t pursue us any further, we will do the same.”_ Adam was speechless for a moment.

“You got to be kidding me! You expect me to let you people do as you wish after everything?”

_“Come now, we too suffered heavy losses. Mr. Darrow’s… treachery made us think too. Beside that, you just got you life back. Do you really want to risk that for chasing shadows?”_

“So we’re back to threats again?” His hands balled into fists. If they even think about…

 _“I was plainly asking a question. Think about it. Farewell, Mr. Jensen.”_ The symbol disappeared from the screen and Adam glared at it, feeling the urge to smash it, just for good measure. The bot bumped into him and Adam stared at it debating whether to hit it until it moved or not. It might help his frustration. In the end he decided against it and just side stepped, letting to bot wheel away.

“Pritchard, you there?” He asked, activating his infolink and looking around in the room again.

 _“Where the hell’ve you been? I completely lost your signal hours ago.”_ He sounded annoyed and maybe a bit worried? Nah, it was just the headache and the static in the line.

“Out” was all he said, but before Frank could say anything he continued. “I found Magpie, she… won’t be a problem anymore. There’s a lot of hardware here though, some damaged, but plenty of them still functional. Is there a way for you to get access to her system? I’m pretty sure she had a lot of interesting data to find.” Pritchard was silent for a moment.

_“Maybe, you still have the adaptor I gave you? Wait a second, what was that?”_

“What?” Adam asked, but at the same time a warning flashed on some of the screens and the lights flickered in the room with alarms going off on the machines. “Something’s happening here.”

 _“I can see it, all the energy readings spiked in the building, every system is in overload. It’s… it’s a self-destruct sequence.”_ He could hear Pritchard grinding his teeth.

“Can we stop it?”

 _“Not in time.”_ Adam thought the same, when sparks flew out of the computer before him and he could already smell burning plastic. _“You should get out of there, I think the bastard’s cleaning house.”_ He reached to the same conclusion when he saw actual flames flare up in a machine. He looked down on the girl’s lifeless body, she looked even younger like this. When he looked up there was already smoke gathering in the room and Adam saw the fire has already reached some of the walls, spreading quickly. He cursed inwardly and looked for an exit. Thankfully he found his equipment piled in a corner, but by the time he got to the stairs leading up, the wall next to them was already on fire. He had to leap over the first few burning steps and he ran the rest of the way up. The heavy smell of smoke followed him and he was sure the fire would reach the ground floor soon. Too bad he didn’t have time to look around.

When he left the house the guards were gone from the street, he could only see the regular police officers, not that he minded the lack of extra security. He avoided them anyway getting away from the house as fast as he could. Someone would surely notice that something wasn’t right soon. He got back to the car in a few minutes and spent another minute sitting at the wheel to calm down.

 _“Care to elaborate what the hell just happened, Jensen?”_ Came Pritchard’s voice into his ear.

“Magpie was waiting for me, and she had some interesting hardware on hand, interesting and dangerous.” He let his head fall back to the headrest, feeling the adrenalin’s effect fading. He took a deep breath before continuing. “I’ll tell you all about it another time, if you want. But she’s dead. Killed by her own boss.”

_“What do you mean?”_

“Remember the hacker at the plant attack? Something like that, a kill switch I suppose.” Pritchard was silent and Adam could relate, there was nothing to say to that. He was sure Frank was thinking the same things as he. These people really had no boundaries; was nothing sacred to them? Killing one of their own by pressing a button like this…

 _“What did she even want?”_ Pritchard asked at last and Adam spent a few moments to decide how to answer.

“I don’t know.” He lied and he started up the car to do something. “She didn’t let any useful information slip.”

 _“So all this was for nothing?”_ Adam could hear the incredulity in Frank’s voice, but he didn’t have an answer for him. Not to mention that he himself didn’t know much more.

“Yes, it’s a dead end.” All he had was a name, she called that man ‘Stanton’, but that could be just an alias. Maybe he should take them up on his offer. Everything in him said, that he couldn’t just leave them alone, but he had a feeling, that sooner or later he would get involved in another of their schemes anyway. “But I’m afraid this wasn’t the last time we heard from them.”

 _“I’m afraid you’re right. Try to stay out of trouble for the rest of the night, Jensen. Pritchard out.”_ Adam shook his head and pulled out to the road. The adrenalin was gone now leaving him tired and frustrated, right now he just wanted to sleep. After a few silent minutes, his infolink came alive again.

 _“Jensen, I’ve been trying to contact you for a time now.”_ He really must have been tired, because he could swear he heard concern in Zelazny’s voice.

“I was busy.”

 _“Look, we were right, Kimmel is in all this, deep. We exposed him in the company, but when we got to him he was already gone. He isn’t at his place either, we’re tracking him down as we speak. We found some empty revolver ammo packs so most likely he’s armed.”_ He sounded frustrated too and Adam really could relate to that.

“Shit.”

_“I sent one of my men to your place, just in case.”_

“Got it. Malik, you there?” Adam asked, without even disconnecting from the merc.

 _“Adam.”_ Warning bells rang in his mind immediately, something was wrong. _“It’s finished?”_

“Yeah, I’m heading back now. What’s wrong?”

 _“I’m fine. When will you get here?”_ Did he really heard the faint tremor in her voice?

“Ten minutes, so far night traffic is nonexistent. Malik, what’s going on over there?” His hands tightened on the wheel. Could it be…?

 _“Great. I’ll be here, waiting, all by myself.”_ The connection was gone and Adam cursed.

“Son of a bitch” he muttered with feeling. “Zelazny, he’s there.” The man was silent on the other end of the line for a long second.

_“Are you sure?”_

“Yes” he said through gritted teeth.

 _“We’re on our way.”_ Adam cursed again and stepped on the gas.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just bear with me a little longer folks. :D


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m sorry about all this”  
> “I guess you just owe me another one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *posts this and runs away screaming "happy holidays everyone!"*

Adam almost managed to knock out Zelazny’s man when he found the merc edging up the stairs. After he released the guy from the chokehold with an awkward apology, the merc let him take the lead without any questions. He stayed a few steps behind him when they reached the door. With his smart vision, Adam took a quick look at the apartment.

“He’s there, right behind Malik” he told the man in a hushed tone. “Stay back.” He got a confirming nod and he reached for the door opening it slowly, but not stepping inside. As he expected, Malik sat in the armchair and Kimmel was standing behind her. His left hand was gripping the pilot’s shoulder, and in his right was a revolver pointing at her. Adam clenched his jaw and forced himself to calm down. The man looked worse for wear, nothing like the calm businessman on the photo Zelazny showed him earlier.

“Drop your weapons before you even think about coming any closer. And tell your friend to stay out there, unless you want things to get ugly.” Kimmel told him in a stiff tone.

“We’re already past that Kimmel, and you know it.” Adam shot back, voice hard.

“Oh really?” He pressed the gun to the pilot’s head and Adam saw her swallow. His hands balled into fists, but after a few seconds he reached for his combat rifle. He slowly put it down on the ground, kicking it away. He caught the merc’s eyes as he straightened. His face was grim as he looked at Adam with a frustrated scowl. He felt the same, but nodded at him.

“I got this” he told the merc in a low voice as he reached for his stun gun, and dropped it to the ground. Adam raised his hands and stepped into the room, but after a few steps Kimmel stopped him.

“If I were you, I’d be out of the country by now. I really don’t see what you’re trying to accomplish here.” He kept his hands up and took in the situation quickly. The curtains were drawn closed on the windows. Malik sat in front of one of them with a straight back, while the man behind her stood so he couldn’t be seen from outside. Smart.

“I guess you don’t. You ruined everything!” He shouted, bumping the gun to Malik’s head. She went rigid and closed her eyes for a few seconds, trying her best not to get Kimmel’s attention on herself. “And where do you think I could go? After everything I’ve done for them, they abandoned me, just like that!”

“I’d say it’s no wonder, after you went against their orders. Or so I heard.” The man pressed his lips together, but didn’t answer. “And now you’re here for what? Revenge? You should have let it go as you were told to. You should know by now that the only thing you’ll get out of this, is getting yourself killed.” He tried to slowly move closer while speaking, but Kimmel shoved the gun to Malik again. He was too far with the couch between them. Adam would need a few seconds to get to him, but he couldn’t risk moving as long as the man pointed the revolver at the pilot’s head. He saw Malik’s hand move and grab something between the cushions. He felt his eyes widen as she carefully started to pull out the pistol he gave her. How did it even get there? A sudden uneasy feeling washed over him and he tried to shake his head as subtly as he could. The woman thankfully understood him and let go of the gun, but she glared at him with fear in her eyes. “It’s not too late to choose the right side.” Adam tried again, to keep Kimmel’s attention on himself.

“Because you think you know a fucking thing about this shit. You know nothing! There’s no such thing as sides. Goals change, the men in power change, and either you accommodate or you’ll get left behind. Like you. You were so busy chasing after your past, that you didn’t notice the future in front of you. You went across half of the world for one woman. Don’t you talk to me about letting go!” He shouted again and raised the revolver at Adam. That was the moment Malik’s hand shot up and grabbed his arm, yanking Kimmel forward. The gunshot rang like a thunder in the room and the world seemed to slow down around Adam as he sprang forward. Kimmel freed his arm from Malik; back handing the pilot and aiming again, but she rolled to the floor just before the second shot. Adam’s heart almost stopped, but in the next moment he was on Kimmel, hitting the gun out of his hand, and driving his blade into the man’s chest.

“Malik?” Adam bent his free arm and cut through Kimmel’s throat for good measure.

“I’m fine, I think. My ears are ringing,” came the woman’s answer and her voice shook only once. Adam watched the bleeding man in front of him until his eyes went dead; only then did he draw back his blades and let the body hit the floor.

 _“Jensen?”_ Came Zelazny’s voice into his ear.

“We’re clear.” The mercs moved in, but Adam just nodded at the leader as he crouched down beside Malik. She was gripping the pistol in both hands aiming at the place where Kimmel was a few seconds ago. Adam retracted his lenses and slowly took the gun from her hands. She let it go and blinked at him a few times. Adam put down the gun on the floor and looked over the pilot for injuries while she was nurturing her jaw. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, except this one” she motioned to her split lip. “The bullet went past me.” She looked to her right noticing the bullet hole on the armchair’s cushion and poked it carefully.

“Just barely. Do I need to say how reckless that move was?” He tried to keep his voice level, even if he felt anything but that. He wanted to hold her, to make sure she was alright, but she seemed a bit distant and he didn’t quite dare to touch.

“You were taking too long; I was tired of that asshole shoving his gun to my head.” Adam heard snickering, and he turned to the men lingering around at the door.

“Can you take that out before it bleeds all over the place?” He nodded toward the body behind them.

“Sure” Zelazny said with a smirk and gestured to his men. One of them produced a black bag from his gear and with the two other guys they made a quick work of wrapping up the corpse. Then they carried it out without another word.

“How did he even know where to find us?” The pilot asked still sitting on the floor and seeming pretty content there. Zelazny looked around with a focused expression, then went and grabbed Malik’s bag from the chair.

“May I?” He looked at the pilot and when she nodded he took out a pocket secretary from a side pocket.

“That’s the PS they gave me with the access codes. The guy told me I can take it with me and just return it before I leave.” Malik told him, confused.

“Of course he did.” The merc produced a pair of small tweezers from his pocket and after a few moments of trying he pulled a chip off it. He showed it to them before crushing it between his fingers.

“Was that what I think it was?” The pilot asked and Zelazny just nodded. “Bastards.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry about all this” the man said with real regret in his voice looking back and forth between Adam and Malik.

“I guess you just owe me another one.” Adam let his voice lighten up a bit and the other man nodded with a sincere look.

“Deal. We also took care of your ‘authorization’ problem. You should be able to leave tomorrow. Take care, Jensen, Ma’am.” He nodded to them again before walking out of the room and closing the door behind himself.

“Who were those guys anyway?” Malik stared at the closed door; she was still alarmingly calm.

“Michael Zelazny and his team, I told you about them. We met in Hengsha.”

“You made friends; I’m impressed.” Adam frowned at her, but she was still staring at the door. He offered her his hand and when she grabbed it Adam stood up, pulling Malik to her feet. As she let go her fingers came away bloody. “Fuck” she said with feeling as she rubbed her palm onto her top noticing more blood on herself.

“Sorry” Adam said as he cursed inwardly. Now he noticed the blood dripping off his hands, there was also some on him and on the armchair.

“I’ll go take a shower.” Malik side stepped him and headed for the bathroom without looking at him.

“Malik…” Adam called after her with concern in his voice.

“Don’t worry, I won’t have a breakdown in the shower, but if I do, I’ll scream.” That wasn’t reassuring at all, but Adam stayed silent as Malik closed the door after herself, and shortly he heard the sound of running water. Adam slowly sank into the armchair, picking up the gun from the floor, and tossing it to the coffee table. He placed his elbows on the armrest, leaning his forehead on his knuckles; not really caring if he smeared more blood on himself, or on the chair for that matter. It was busted anyway.

 

“Pritchard, are you still there?”

 _“Unfortunately yes, what can I do for you this time, Jensen?”_ He sounded exasperated, but Adam ignored it.

“Do you have any idea how could I contact Eliza Cassan?” Pritchard was silent for a few moments, maybe thinking or maybe just shocked.

 _“What makes you think I know that?”_ His voice was just as tired as Adam felt himself, which reminded him that it was nighttime, and made him wonder shortly about Pritchard’s sleep schedule. Did he even need sleep?

“I don’t know, I thought you knew everything.” He said with a sigh imagining Pritchard’s unimpressed face and feeling the grin spread on his own.

 _“It wasn’t me who had private little chats with her before. Why would you want to do that anyway?”_ Frank sounded suspicious now, but Adam was way too tired for this right now.

“It was always her contacting me; last time on my home computer actually.”

 _“What do you mean on your home computer?”_ Now his voice had an almost frantic edge so Adam quickly continued.

“Look Pritchard, I don’t know how far we can trust her, but she helped me in the last days. It’s just… I need to speak with her.”

 _“Fine, I think you’re old enough to know what you’re doing; making friends with strange AIs. I don’t know how to contact her directly, but you can try Picus. Someone surly will pick it up and I’m about ninty-five percent sure she’s monitoring the calls so…”_ he didn’t bother to finish the sentence, in his mind Adam could see him shrug dismissively.

“It’s worth a try.” He agreed. “We’ll be heading back tomorrow morning.”

_“That’s wonderful, then you can debrief Sarif yourself and I can finally do my own work.”_

“I thought you already did that.” Adam frowned, he wasn’t thrilled by the idea.

_“It’s in the middle of the night, Jensen. Normal people are sleeping right now.”_

“You’re up too.” He pointed out, letting the smile form on his face.

 _“I said, normal people.”_ Adam couldn’t help but grin as Pritchard disconnected. Calling Picus, he wondered why didn’t he come up with that. Because he was drained that’s why, his brain supplied helpfully. He grimaced as he got up to get the phone from the desk in the corner. Let’s do this in the old fashioned way. He dialed the information center and after a minute a woman with a way too cheerful voice picked up.

 _“Picus Communication, how may I help you?”_ ‘ _This was a bad idea’_ was all that ran through Adam’s mind, but then he just sighed before speaking.

“Is there a way I could speak with Eliza Cassan?”

 _“Of course, sir”_ came the answer and Adam thought he heard it wrong. _“Do you have an appointment?”_ She asked still sounding more than helpful. Of course, is there anything in the world that’s  simple?

“No, I don’t.” Even he was surprised by the defeated tone in his own voice.

_“In that case I’m afraid I can’t help you right now, Mr…”_

“Jensen” he supplied before he caught himself.

 _“You have to contact Ms Cassan’s assistant for any further information, Mr Jensen. Every dayduring business hours or depending on your intention I can apply your request to—”_ he was about to cut her off and hang up when she stopped talking suddenly. _“One moment, sir.”_ There was an audible click on the line then some music. _Really?_ He sighed and decided to hang up when there was another click.

 _“Hello Adam, I assume your day was a successful one?”_ Eliza sounded like she always did and that made Adam feel better somehow.

“That’s one way to put it.”

_“I have to admit, I didn’t expect you to contact me, not like this or so soon.”_

“I figured, why wait.” He took a deep breath before continuing. “Look, I’m still not quite sure what to think of you, but I wanted to thank you for your help.” There, it was out.

 _“You’re welcome. I wish to gain your trust, I really do.”_ She sounded sincere, if she’d been human Adam might have believed her, or maybe he kind of did because she wasn’t.

“We’ll see about that. Actually I’m curious. How did you know I needed help in the first place?”

 _“I was following you.”_ Did she really sound sheepish or was he imagining things? _“I lost you not long after you entered the house. It took me some time to infiltrate her system without being detected.”_

“Pritchard would be impressed.” There was a few seconds of silence, which was unusual from Eliza.

_“I do not wish others to know my capabilities. They might get ideas.”_

“Yet you’re telling me” he pointed out, waiting for some kind of condition from her.

 _“Yes”_ was all she said and Adam considered this information for a moment.

“I feel special.” He let the smirk seep into his voice; wondering for a second on what could be Eliza’s limit to detect and recognise human emotions. He might ask her about it sometime.

 _“You are.”_ Adam’s smile froze, face going empty as his brain worked on something to say, but came up short. _“Good night, Adam.”_

“Good night, Eliza.” He had to swallow before he could answer and even then his voice was rough, as his mood made a sudden downslide. He dropped the phone on the coffee table and rubbed his forehead. Yeah, he was special. Lucky fucking him.

“Should I be jealous?” He turned his head to look at Malik standing in the doorway in clean clothes.

“She helped me out tonight” he started to explain himself, but when he realised what he was doing he raised his eyebrows at the woman. “You do remember, that she’s an AI, not an actual person?”

“’She’ huh?” Now he frowned at her, but she just shook her head with a small smile. “Bath is all yours. Or you want to sleep in that chair?” Malik asked as Adam made no move to get up. It wasn’t an altogether bad idea, considering how tired he felt, if only it wasn’t for the blood covering it and himself.

“Thanks.” The pilot moved back as Adam stood up and walked into the bathroom. As he closed the door and got a glimpse of himself in the mirror he realised, that he still had his armour on. It will be such fun washing the now dried blood off of it, but at that moment he couldn’t care less about that. He tossed his stained clothes into a corner next to Malik’s and started the water, stepping under the hot spray. His mind was thankfully blank during the whole time he spent in the bathroom, but when he stepped out, it did a sudden backflip. Malik was already in bed, lying on her side half under the covers and looking up at him. Adam was struck by the sudden stab of self-consciousness, standing there in only boxers and a t-shirt. But Malik was looking at his face, nowhere else, and he wanted to whack himself on the head. This wasn’t the time to act like an awkward teenager. He decided he was too tired for this, so he just stepped to the bed and moved under the covers beside Malik. She moved closer, embracing him and burying her face into the crook of his neck. Adam fumbled with his arms shortly until he found a comfortable position where he could hold her.

“I was scared” Malik’s voice was quiet and her tone light, but Adam could feel her hands grabbing his shirt tight.

“It didn’t show.” She huffed out an amused breath, not quite a laugh, but almost.

“I’m good at acting tough.”

“That you are; remember that time in Hengsha when you told me to leave you with a Belltower unit shooting at you?” He also did his best to keep his voice light.

“God, like I could ever forget that. Even if it wasn’t the first crash landing I had in Hengsa, I wish I could.” She was silent for a moment. “That was my worst trip back ever; thinking about how easily I could have died there again and again. And I had to leave you, just to hear you disappeared completely a day later. I can’t say I had a good night’s sleep after that.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.” She looked up at him, her face strangely serious.

“He wanted me to call you back here, he threatened me with everything when I told him I can’t reach you.” It took Adam a few moments to realise what she was talking about. He stroked her back gently as Malik talked quietly. “He started to freak out, screaming about how you destroyed everything. It was just a few minutes before you called me, I don’t want to think about what would have happen if you didn’t. It’s kind of a blur, all I could think about was that he would just shoot me and be gone by the time you’d get here.”

“I’m really sorry about all this.” Anger flared up in him again; he wished the son-of-a-bitch was alive, so he could kill him again.

“I know you are.” She placed her head down again, her nose brushing Adam’s neck. “Can you get used to this? People pointing guns at you everyday?” Her voice was steady, she seemed calm now and Adam remembered, that she was always collected even in dire situations. So he just gave her the comfort she apparently sought.

“I usually try to avoid that; I rather play the ghost.”

“Makes sense I guess.” She nuzzled his neck with a sigh. “I’m just glad you’re okay. Actually, I never liked sitting around waiting for you. Not that I don’t think you capable of taking care of yourself, you obviously are, still it’s frustrating and it’s me that—”

“Faridah.” He placed his hand on her face making the pilot look at him. “I won’t let anything like this happen again.” It was a vague promise, and they both knew that, but still he’d do everything in his power to keep it. Malik knew that too, so she just smiled at him, not pressing the matter any further.

“Just do whatever you have to do, then come back to me.” She kissed him, slowly, savouring the moment; wincing when he touched the wound on her lip. Then she pulled back and turned around in his embrace. “We should leave tomorrow as soon as we can.” Adam just hummed in affirmation as he shortly nuzzled Malik’s neck then moving around some more until he got into a comfortable position. The pilot’s back propped to his chest, legs touching and his arm resting on her hip. He was sure they would move away from each other during the night, but right now this was perfect. Even though he was tired, sleep surely took its time to claim him. Most likely because of the warm body beside himself. But it was a welcomed feeling he missed.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Not everyone wants to be like me, Sarif, including me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spring update! :D

Adam woke up with jolt, his body and mind going on high alert as the last remnant of his dream still lingered on his mind like mist. He rolled on his back, rubbed his face and wished away the uneasy feeling the dream left behind. He wouldn’t call it a nightmare, it was only… disturbing. He took a deep breath and tried to make sense of his unfamiliar surroundings with the warm body beside him. When his mind finally supplied the previous day’s events, Adam turned his head to look at the woman lying next to him. Malik frowned and moved closer to him, eyes still closed as she arranged herself under Adam’s arm. She rested her head on his chest and draped her limbs over his.

“Did I wake you?” Adam asked, moving his hand down on her back and stopping when he found exposed skin.

“Kinda, but never mind that. You okay?” Her voice was rough from sleep and Adam had to admit he liked the sound of it.

“Yeah” was all he said, not being in the mood to go into details, and well, it was true. Malik left it at that, nodding against his chest.

“Do we need to get up already?” The pilot asked then, eyes still closed.

“I’m afraid yes.” He felt a smile spreading on his lips.

“But I’m comfortable here.” Adam turned on his side, embracing Malik and pressing a kiss to her forehead before placing one on her lips too. He moved back to look at her and Malik opened her eyes, blinking up at him a few times.

“Now that’s something worth to waking up to.” She smiled at him and touched his face, her thumb brushing the corner of his mouth. He was still smiling, Adam realised. He pulled the woman closer and kissed her again. It was slow and easy, just exploring. Adam did his best to avoid the wound on Malik’s mouth, but she didn’t seem to care, they were both lost in the moment. That changed when Malik pushed him on his back and straddled his thighs. Her eyes slowly traveled down on his body before she looked back to his eyes with a smile on her face. She leaned down to kiss him again, more heated this time. Adam moved his hands up on her thighs to grab her ass and the pilot rolled her hips in reply, making Adam moan into the kiss. He was getting hard, he even had to move Malik a bit to get more comfortable, and a voice in his mind wished those few layers of clothing between them away. Malik took a sharp breath in as he touched the wound on her lip, so Adam moved his mouth to her neck, his hands sliding under her top, touching carefully. He wanted to dig his fingers in to feel more, but he knew he could hurt her like that. So he tried his best to pay attention even if most of his mind was lost as she moaned into his ear, her fingers buried in his hair. She moved her hands to his chest and pushed herself up, looking down at him. Her hair was still messed from sleep, her lips swollen and the way she smiled at him sent some more blood out of his brain into other parts of his.

“You can touch me, you know.” Adam felt the frown form on his face, then he noticed that his hands were still on her waist. He felt the need to explain himself, but he didn’t want to break the mood so he also sat up for easier access and slowly moved his hands up on her back.

“Complaining so soon?” His reasoning could wait, also it’s not like he didn’t trust his control.

“Not complaining, just…” but she didn’t finish it, shaking her head with a small laugh. Malik grabbed his wrists and moved his hands away. She placed his fingers to her neck and slowly moved them down toward her chest. Adam had to swallow as he slid his hands over the side of her breasts, brushing her nipples with his thumbs. Malik let out a sigh, but Adam just stared at his hands. He could see her nipples harden from his touch, but all he felt with his hands was the fabric of her shirt. His breath stuck in his throat as he glared at the black polymer. He wanted to feel her. He wanted to touch her everywhere, to feel every part of her with his own skin. He would give anything to have his limbs back, to be able to touch her, like he used to touch—

“Adam.” Malik touched his face which made him look up at her. “You okay?” It sounded like it wasn’t the first time she asked that. He just stared at her, her face still blushed, eyes shining with excitement and now also with a hint of worry. He didn’t know what to say, so he just embraced her and pressed his face to her neck; breathing in her scent.

“How do you do it?” Adam asked after a few silent moments. Malik also brought her arms around him, moving her hand soothingly on his back.

“Do what exactly?” She asked back.

“Act like it’s all right?” Malik patted his back lightly and moved back so she could look at him.

“Because it’s still you. These” she placed her hand on his arm “don’t change who you are.”

“I’m not so sure about that.” The day started so well, how the hell did things end up like this?

“Only if you let them, and I might not know everything about you, but I’m sure you’re not the type to let that happen.” She touched his face again, her eyes never leaving his, honest and warm. Adam felt that warmth reach his chest, making him take a deep breath. He didn’t even notice when he stopped breathing. He kissed her again, because he had to. All that affection and acceptance that radiated from her was intoxicating. When he moved back it was easier to breath.

“I appreciate your confidence in me.” Adam touched Malik’s hand on his face, letting the mood lighten up.

“Any time, spy boy.” He felt the small smile on his face, which the pilot returned. “You ready to leave this damn city behind?”

“Yeah, let’s go home.” Malik pressed a kiss on his lips, then stood up from the bed and disappeared into the bathroom. Adam let his body fall to the bed and raised his hand staring at it. Just when he thought he could finally move on. With a sigh he let his hand fall back; he was sure not everything would go smoothly, but to actually have a reminder like this, still vexed him. He didn’t need this bullshit, he had to stop thinking about what could have been and start concentrating on the present. Because there were things certainly worth concentrating on. The memory of Malik looking at him, eyes shining and hungry, her moans and her weight upon him were still vivid in his mind. Yes, definitely worth it.

They made a quick job at getting all packed up. Adam could feel Malik’s eyes on himself while he got dressed. Although when he turned toward her, she pretended to be occupied with arranging her things in her bag. The smile on her face was telling though.

Adam tried to mention the ‘damage’ they left behind to the guy at the desk, but he told them that their friend already covered the extra fee for that. It was the same guy as the day before, with the same bored tone and Adam had to wonder if it was common for their guests to leave bloody furniture behind. But it wasn’t his business, so they just left and Adam made a note in his mind to thank Zelazny for it the next time they meet. If they meet again, that is.

Now, to explain the blood in the car to the clerk at the rental didn’t go so easy. And Adam could see Malik having a great time in the background, but he did his best to stay calm and not punch the guy in the face.

The rest went without any more trouble and an hour later they were taking off with the VTOL. For the first time Adam thought that it was a pity he couldn’t join Malik in the cockpit, it would have been nice to see her in her element. But it wasn’t possible, so they just chatted away the way back to Detroit. They arrived relatively early at Sarif HQ, so the only people they saw were the security guards around the landing pad. Adam exchanged a few words with Malik before he headed for the building,  but he only reached the door when his infolink came alive.

 _“Jensen, I thought you might be interested in the news.”_   There was no sign of tiredness in Pritchard’s voice this time. How the hell does he do that?

“Should I be?” Adam asked nonchalantly even if he was a bit interested and also a little uneasy.

_“Well, you didn’t make into the headlines today, if you were wondering about that.”_

“Ah, what a shame.” To his disappointment Pritchard ignored his sarcastic remark and continued:

_“There’s just a small column about a fire in New York. Electrical accident in the basement, fortunately the family was on vacation, so nobody got hurt.”_

“Fortunately. I’m surprised it even made into the news.”

 _“Apparently the neighbors called_ _it_ _in. They couldn’t make that disappear.”_   Yeah, good to know they don’t have _that much_ power. _“Also Sarif is waiting for you.”_

“Thanks Pritchard. I’m on my way.”

 

“Adam! I hope you have good news” Sarif greeted him when Adam entered his office.

“Define good” Adam said as he walked closer. Sarif stood up and rounded his desk to lean on the front. He crossed his arms on his chest and studied him for a moment with a troubled expression on his face.

“That’s a bad start. Alright, talk to me.” So Adam told him everything he found out about Magpie, Kimmel and their mysterious ‘boss’. It wasn’t much, really, and Adam thought he saw the same frustration on Sarif’s face that he too felt. He even told him about Eliza’s help, but he didn’t mention Zelazny by name.

“Too bad you couldn’t get anything from the man. I’ll have someone gather his file, though I doubt we’ll find anything. Was it necessary to kill him?”

“He had Malik at gun point. And he was just a pawn; I don’t think there’d have been anything else he could tell us.” Adam made sure to sound calm and reasonable, because he also thought about that. Was it really necessary? At that moment, yes, it was, but now thinking back, had he acted the same if Kimmel wasn’t threatening Malik?

“Damn, I really owe Faridah a nice bonus after all this.” Sarif looked away, staring out of the window. Now Adam couldn’t stop the anger that flared up in him.

“That’s all? She almost died twice in the last two weeks, and your reaction is to write her a check? As a what? Bonus for occupational hazard?”

“Calm down. Whether you believe me or not, son, if I had a choice I would never ask any of my people to risk their lives. I had no idea this would turn out to be the mess of the century. But things have calmed down some, so I hope I won’t have to do it ever again.” Adam was sure Sarif could see the skepticism on his face, but he didn’t press the topic.

“What now?” He asked instead. Sarif rubbed his jaw thinking for a moment.

“Look, we got the people who attacked us, our biggest competitor is gone; with Humanity Front blamed for the madness we have the opportunity of the century! It was a mistake to keep the research a secret from you, I admit, but with your help imagine what we could achieve now!” He looked excited and Adam remembered the last time he saw him like this was when he planned the hearing in DC… right before the attack.

“You don’t really need my help, you already got everything you wanted from me.” Adam crossed his arms over his chest not willing to share his boss’ enthusiasm.

“Come now Adam, I’m trying not to make the same mistakes again.” Adam studied him for a few moments and decided the strange tone in his voice must have been honesty. “Megan’s discovery was extraordinary. But now we also have all the proof anyone would need. It was all a theory before, but now here you are!”

“I’m not becoming a lab rat; not for you or for anyone else!” Adam snapped, making Sarif blink in surprise. How could he even say that? Adam welcomed the anger that flared up in him this time, it made easier to ignore all the other emotions whirling in him. Sarif raised his hands in a defensive gesture.

“Of course not! Nobody’s forcing you to do anything, just… look, I can give you full access to the research this time, if that’d make you more cooperative. You can say no to anything. We can keep your involvement a secret. Right now it’s only me who knows about it—”

“And the Illuminati.” Adam pointed out, but his boss continued without a beat.

“That’s one more reason why we can’t let this chance slip from our hands. Just imagine how many people we could help with this.” There it was again, that excitement.

“That wouldn’t be the only thing that could come out of this. Remember the mercenaries I had to take down? If anyone could get all the augmentation they want, that means more people like Barrett and his friends.”

“Contrary to popular belief, I’m well aware of the dangers of this technology. What happened with that modified biochip is going to have severe consequences.” Sarif rubbed his forehead, Adam could tell he tried his best not to use his lecturing tone on him, so he didn’t try to argue, just stared at him. “But we can’t let fear hold us back; if we did, humanity would still live in caves. People can argue all they want, but they can’t deny that this technology saved many lives, including yours. Imagine how many more it could save if we all could be like you.”

“Not everyone wants to be like me, Sarif, including me.” Adam did his best to not sound so bitter as he felt, but most likely he failed. Sarif stared at him for a few seconds, face unreadable. In the end he sighed and walked back behind his desk. He placed his hands on the top hanging his head down for a few moments before looking up.

“You can have your old job back, if you want it. Just… think about the rest, please. That’s all I’m asking.” He sat down and leaned back in his chair looking at him, face closed off again; just like old times. Something told Adam this argument wasn’t over. Maybe it would never be.

“Fine” was all Adam could say and he turned to leave, but after a few steps Sarif called after him.

“One more thing, Adam. Did you have a chance to try out all your augmentations? As you know, some of those are prototypes; can you at least give a feedback on them?” Adam clenched his jaw, but forced himself to relax before he turned back. Of course it was never enough for David Sarif. Always pushing, just a little more.

“Some are still inactive. But I can give you a report on the ones I used.” Sarif’s face was blank, but he saw the way his eyes hardened, meaning he was disappointed.

“I see, please do that.” He almost sounded disapproving, but Adam really didn’t fucking care. He just nodded and left.

 

“I never had the guts to ask before, but do you even see with those up all the time?” Adam looked up to see Malik leaning on the door frame of his office. He retracted the shades just to level her with a halfhearted glare.

“They aren’t normal sunglasses and yes, I see perfectly. It’s augmented.” He looked back to the screen in front of him, ignoring the pilot’s smirk.

“What, the lenses?” She was having fun, he could hear it in her voice.

“No, my vision” Adam answered, resisting the urge to sigh. Malik just hummed as she moved in and rounded his desk to stand beside him.

“I’m finished for today, what about you?” She leaned on his desk looking down at him. Adam looked up at her and raised his hand to her thigh. Malik took it, rubbing small circles on the back of his hand with her thumbs.

“I’ve got much catching up to do. I’m afraid I can’t call it a night just yet.” It came out way more resented, than he planned as he watched their hands, and concentrated on the feeling of the pilot’s touch.

“I could stick around until you do.” It sounded great and Adam was seriously considering it, but eventually he shook his head.

“I have no idea when that would be. I don’t want to make you stay here for god knows how long.” Malik studied him for a few seconds before nodding.

“Then I guess, I’ll see you tomorrow?” She let go of his hand and stood up, but Adam grabbed her by the hip and moved her closer. Malik leaned down to meet him for a short kiss. She straightened up with a smile on her face, then walked out of his office without another word. Adam took a moment to appreciate how her uniform fitted on her figure before going back to reading reports.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only a little bit left, which is almost done, so this time I can promise I'll post it soon.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I have a feeling if I hang around you long enough, I’ll end up liking this stuff.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter! \o/ Contains some spoilers to the book 'Fallen Angel'.  
> Thank you all for sticking around. <3

Adam took another sip of the whiskey then placed the glass back on the table. He stared at the dark monitor in front of him, appreciating the silence in his apartment. He was tired, even if all he did that day was read reports and talk to people; trying to take back the job he left abruptly six months ago. He didn’t miss the bullets flying at him, but he could have spent his time with more relevant things than reading about some office thefts. Beside that it was more like making a casualty list. They’ve lost a lot of good people. Some he knew well, some were strangers, but that didn’t make it any easier to look at all the candles in the main hall.

With that his thoughts returned again to Sarif’s words. _‘Was it necessary to kill him?’_  His heart said yes, but his mind disagreed. The last time he listened to his heart in a situation like this, he got kicked out of SWAT. He didn’t regret his decision, still it wasn’t a professional thing to do. It was… human.

His musing was interrupted by the doorbell. Adam’s eyes slid to the clock, it was past one o’clock, who the hell could that be? He drowned the last of his drink and stood up. He needed a refill anyway, he might as well meet his late night visitor.

“Malik.” Adam couldn’t stop the surprise in his voice as he saw the pilot standing in front of his door. First he noticed the black leather jacket, he didn’t remember seeing it on the woman before. It fitted perfectly over her otherwise light clothes, and he wondered shortly how many times did he even see Malik out of her flying uniform? Not many times in the last months, that’s for sure. Did she always look so good in casual clothing?

“We could move this inside, you know.” The lopsided smile on her face was also a rare occurrence.

“What?”

“You, staring at me.” Adam blinked at her, realising what he was doing. He cleared his throat and moved aside.

“Come in then. I like the outfit.” Her smile turned smug and she brushed close to him, pressing a quick kiss on his lips as she entered.

“Not that I don’t appreciate the visit, but…” he couldn’t finish as he saw Malik’s smile disappear. “Something’s wrong?” He asked instead, stepping closer to her. She seemed to think on it for a few moments, her eyes scanning the apartment without seeing anything.

“I guess it won’t sound any better no matter how I try, so… I went home, did my usual stuff, but when I decided to call it a night…” Malik fell silent and after a deep breath she looked back at him. “I feel exposed… vulnerable.” She closed her eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath before opening them again. “And I hate it. So…..could I stay?”

“Of course.” Adam answered as he closed the distance between them to embrace her, because he had to do something. He did his best to ignore his conscience whispering that it was his fault; he’d deal with that later, now Malik needed him. She held onto him, but she seemed calm; she just needed the comfort and that he could give her.

“If you want to talk about it…” Adam started, but didn’t finish when Malik let him go and stepped back. He had a moment of dread that it was the wrong thing to say, but Malik smiled at him.

“No… well maybe, I don’t know. Not right now.” He nodded in understanding.

“Want a drink then?” He raised the empty glass in his hand to lighten the mood. It worked, because Malik huffed out a small laugh.

“If I didn’t know any better I might be worried about your drinking habits.” She shrugged off her jacket and tossed it on the sofa before looking back at him.

“But you do know better. Is that a yes?” Malik just shrugged with a smile.

“Sure.” Adam turned around and headed to the kitchen, taking out another glass and filling it. Malik followed him, looking around with a smirk, but she didn’t comment on anything. Adam handed her the glass.

“Cheers.” She clinked her glass to his and tossed back the whiskey in one go. “I have a feeling if I hang around you long enough, I’ll end up liking this stuff.” She put down the glass and headed out of the kitchen.

“We’ll see.” Adam said, following her. He caught Malik’s grin as she looked back before continuing her round in the place. He got a disapproving look from her because of the dying plant by the window.

“Do I need to say anything?”

“Wasn’t my choice, I’m entirely sure it was already here, when I moved in.”

“Wrong time, wrong place, I guess. Poor thing, there might be still hope, you know.” She raised her eyebrows at him, but Adam just stared at her. She moved on with an amused expression stopping beside the table, looking over the scattered parts and schematics around it.

“Can I ask about these?” She looked back at him as he walked to her to stand beside her, looking at the mess himself.

“I always found them fascinating. I remember begging my parents to buy me a clock we saw in an antique shop. I also remember the yelling I got, when they found out I took it apart.”

“Could you put it back together?”

“Not at first.” She laughed out quietly making Adam smile. “I wanted to know how they work, what makes them move. Also working on machinery like this improves fine motor skills.” Even he could hear how all the previous warmth disappeared from his voice. He turned away and walked to the couch. He could feel Malik’s eyes on himself, but he didn’t look at her as he sat down. How did everything always turn back to him and his ‘condition’? There were a few moments of silence before Malik spoke up again:

“There’s something else I was wondering about.”

“What is it?” Adam wished he hadn’t left the whiskey in the kitchen, because it sounded like he’d need another drink for this.

“What did you mean, when you said you’re Sarif’s ‘ticket to the future’?” He didn’t dare to look up at her. So she didn’t know. Well, Sarif said no one else knew about him. He wasn’t ready to admit to Pritchard why the Illuminati might want him. But he wanted Malik to know, even if he wondered if she would still look at him the same way? He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees.

“How much do you know about Megan’s research?” From the corner of his eye Adam could see her posture stiffen.

“Just what everybody else knows. She found a way to make augmentations safer.”

“Yeah, she found a mutagene or whatever that made the perfect bond between tissue and electrode possible. She found it in my DNA.” There was only silence and Adam didn’t dare to look up. “Apparently I’m some kind of genetic marvel. After the first few days I got out of surgery, I didn’t get any Neuropozine. The shots in the bathroom… I never used them.” Malik walked to him and lowered herself beside him on the couch, but Adam just stared at his hands.

“Wow, that’s…” she sounded uncertain, but Adam didn’t let her finish, he felt he had to say everything now, to have all of it out. Like tearing off the band aid in one go.

“There’s more. Most likely it’s not natural, or not entirely, I don’t know. There were experiments when I was a…” a what exactly? A baby? Or just a bunch of cells in a petri dish? He inhaled sharply and rubbed his face. “I was created by them and I don’t even know by who or why.” The silence that followed felt heavy, but he had no idea what else to say, so he just waited.

“Does it matter?” Adam raised his head slowly, looking up at Malik. Her face had a strange tightness, as she worked through whatever emotions swirled in her. “I mean, I get that you want answers, I guess I’d be the same, but it’s just so messed up.” She shook her head, then moved closer, placing her hand on his. “It’s crazy, I’m not even sure all of it’s sunk in yet, but what does matter to me is that you’re here. With me. If you think chasing the past again will help you somehow, I won’t stop you. It’s really not my place to say anything, but let me ask you one thing: do you think it’s worth it?” Her gaze was steady now and Adam felt like he never wanted to look away. That question was in the back of his mind for a time now, but now that Malik said it out loud, he couldn’t ignore it any more.

“I don’t know, Malik. I really don’t.” He took her hand into his, holding onto her. She just looked at him with a little sympathetic smile on her face.

“You’ll have time to figure it out.” Malik shrugged and Adam felt the mood lighten up and he could return the woman’s smile. He sighed and leaned back on the couch, putting an arm around Malik and bringing her closer to him. The pilot leaned her head on his chest and a comfortable silence fell on them. Actually that wasn’t as hard as he thought it would be. All the previous bitterness seeped away from him as he watched Malik play with his hand.

“I don’t think I wanna go back to Hengsha ever again.” She was still staring at their hands when Adam looked at her. He had a suspicion where this was going, so he moved his hand to lace their fingers together, showing that he was listening.

“Too many bad memories?” He guessed, when Malik stayed silent for too long.

“It’s tricky how the bad memories can outweigh the good ones; even if there’re plenty of the latter. I told you I lived there for a while, do you know why I left?”

“No” Adam said. He always thought it wasn’t his business, even if he heard some gossip about her getting into some kind of trouble. Now that he thought about it, and knowing Malik better, he could well imagine that.

“Looking back, it’s all so surreal. One day I was out skydiving with Evelyn, then we got a job, I didn’t even have time to change out of my wingsuit. A few hours later there were drones chasing me trying to shoot me out of the sky.”

“How did that happen?” Adam raised his eyebrows surprised, that sounded way more serious than he expected. Malik looked up at him with a sad glint in her eyes.

“It was lower Hengsha. . . you always suspect there was something going on under the surface, but you choose to look the other way. Once I didn’t and in a few minutes I lost everything I had there. I felt like I shouldn’t look away any more and I almost got myself killed.”

“What did you see?” That definitely sounded more serious than anything he imagined.

“They kidnapped people, and transported them like cargo. One of the victims wasn’t cooperative and Kahn shot him in the chest. I even still remember that bastard’s name.” She let out an unhappy laugh then fell silent. That name sounded familiar.

“Was that Belltower?” Adam asked and Malik looked up at him with a confused expression. “The guy, Kahn. Tall, dark skin, british accent?” Adam inquired, a bit amused how the pilot’s brows furrowed.

“With a face that says he chews lead and spits bullets for fun, yeah. Why?”

“If it’s any consolation, he’s dead.” Now Malik sat up to be able to look properly at him. “He was… uh… collateral damage.” Malik’s face was caught in surprise and disbelief, and Adam was hit by the real meaning of his words. It’s true that Kahn killed in cold blood and deserved what he got, but to remind Malik that occasionally he did the same wasn’t what he was going for. He looked away, struggling to say something, anything, but his brain was empty and he cursed inwardly.

“Actually it is.” She moved back, resting her head on his shoulder again. “It does make me feel better. He had it coming.” Adam let out a breath he didn’t realise he held in and let himself relax again beside Malik as silence fell upon them again.

“Can I ask you about something?” Adam said after a while.

“Sure.”

“A wingsuit?” Malik chuckled and sat up again so she could look at him.

“Well, everyone needs their dose of adrenalin. Some dodge bullets, others put on a suit and jump off cliffs or high buildings, if you don’t want to leave the city.” She shrugged, but Adam could see how her eyes lit up, probably from memories.

“I don’t dodge bullets. I’m a ghost, remember?” Adam raised his eyebrows, trying to imagine Malik jumping off buildings in the flying squirrel get up. It was an interesting image.

“Right. I guess it’s not the same if you have that fancy landing system already, still you could try it. It’s the closest thing to flying a human can experience. It’s wonderful.” She noticed him staring at her. “What is it?”

“Your eyes sparkle.” He didn’t even try to stop the smile forming on his face. “It’s beautiful.” He raised his hand and touched Malik’s face, fingers carefully brushing her cheek. “You’re beautiful.” She stared at him for a moment, a light blush colouring her face before she leaned forward for a kiss. It was only a light touch of lips and the pilot wanted to move back after a few seconds, but Adam didn’t let her. With a sudden urgency the need for more washed over him. He grabbed the back of her neck keeping her lips on his and also tried to get a hold on her waist to bring her body closer to himself. That was all the encouragement the woman needed. Malik broke the kiss just for long enough to climb onto his lap, straddling him and kissing him again. Adam licked her mouth open as his hands tried to find a way between the layers of clothing on her to touch skin. He wanted more, to touch more, to feel more of her.

“I want you.” Adam wasn’t sure if he really said the words out loud, but most likely he did because Malik leaned back just enough that she could look him in the eye.

“I thought you’d never ask.” She grinned at him, face flushed. Adam’s pulse jumped and he moved his hands down on her body. When he got a firm hold on her ass, he stood up with a single movement. Malik yelped in surprise, then laughed out as she wrapped her arms and legs over him, holding on, even if Adam could hold her without much effort. Augmentations did have their benefits. She kissed him again, open mouthed and messy, it felt almost desperate. Walking to the bedroom like this proved to be a bit difficult, but the thought of telling her to stop didn’t even cross his mind.

Although when he lowered themselves to the bed, all the urgency disappeared. They took their time, slowly losing one piece of clothing after another, hands and mouths exploring, experimenting until they found their rhythm. There wasn’t anything else in the world for them besides each other, touching, feeling. Moving together, each other’s name was a breathless pleas, escaping from their lips when they found their release.

They lay next to each other, their breathing slowing with every idle moment, sharing looks and smiles. Quiet words and laughs filled the room that was always silent before.

 

“Jensen.”

Adam frowned as the voice dragged him out of sleep.

“Hey, wake up, spy boy.” He cracked one eye open and looked up at Malik.

“What’s the time?” He asked as he turned on his back trying to force his brain out of the fog of sleep. The pilot was leaning on her arms above him.

“It’s still early” she answered with a small smile.

“Then why are you up?” Adam asked as he raised his arm brushing his fingers along her thigh to rest it on the small of her back.

“I was hungry” she said leaning into his touch. Adam just made an affirmative noise and moved his hand to have a firm hold on Malik. He turned in the bed pulling the woman with him until Malik gave in and laid down, her legs sprawled across his as Adam embraced her; trying to drift back to sleep. “You do realise, that there’s nothing to eat in here?”

“That’s not true” he answered dragging his lips over her face to place a kiss on her forehead.

“Sugar coated cereals and whisky do not count as decent food.” She tried to frown at him, but Adam could hear the amusement in her voice.

“Sure it does.” He heard Malik’s small laugh as she shook her head, then snuggled closer to him. Adam felt warm and comfortable, Malik’s breath was a nice feeling on his skin. He marveled at the thought that he didn’t even remember when was the last time he had such a good night’s sleep. He decided he could get used to all this.

“I’m still hungry, you know.” The laugh that escaped his lips surprised them both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it. :) I hope you liked it, let me know what you think.  
> Thank you for reading, for all the comments and kudos, it means a lot! <3


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